Wednesday 4 November 2009

New job cuts by Trinity Mirror on Merseyside

Journalists at Trinity Mirror titles on Merseyside are facing a possible further 17 redundancies, HoldtheFrontPage reports today. It follows a restructure plan announced last year which has already seen 43 out of 175 editorial posts cut at Trinity's main Liverpool centre.
HTFP reports that Trinity's North West and Wales division has announced today that there will be a reduction of approximately 17 posts in its editorial operations on Merseyside.
A company statement said as many redundancies as possible are to be voluntary means.
HTFP says it is understood that most of the job losses will be at the Liverpool Daily Post. Staff affected have now entered a period of consultation.
The NUJ claimed that when Trinity Mirror's Liverpool Echo switched to overnight printing from August it would be competing directly with the Daily Post. Jenny Lennox, NUJ assistant organiser, said at the time: “The company says this won’t harm the Daily Post but the staff don’t believe it. A hundred printers have lost their jobs in the switching of production to Oldham - and we can't be sure what this means for journalists."
Update: NUJ members in Liverpool were meeting this afternoon to consider the job cuts, which the union says will mean the axing of seven multi-media journalists’ posts and four photographers, as well as shutting the copy-taking unit and the electronic picture desk.
Last week the NUJ chapel at the Post and Echo and associated weeklies wrote to management to say they could not take any more cuts.
Lawrence Shaw, NUJ assistant organiser, said: “The relentless cuts on Merseyside are damaging the quality of the papers and websites, and the local economy. They also lead to stress and other health and safety issues for the journalists left behind."

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