‘Join us on the picket line to demonstrate against bullying, greedy, out-of-touch management’

The 24-hour strike on Friday by journalists from across Bristol, Gloucestershire and Somerset is the first newspaper pay strike in Bristol for over 40 years.

I have worked as a journalist in the city since the mid-1980s and, while I took part in pay strikes at BBC West back in the 1990s, newspaper colleagues have not striked over pay since the late-1970s.

Unless Reach plc, which publishes the Bristol Post, Western Daily Press and many other titles in the West, including the Bristol Live website, offers its editorial staff a decent pay rise, Friday won’t be the last day of action. Three more day-long strikes are lined up, the next due on Wednesday.

Despite claiming to have used their ‘best efforts’ to resolve the dispute, Reach’s managers have not moved on their initial pay offer – despite talks taking place against a background of spiralling inflation and a growing cost-of- living crisis.

However, while the company’s managers have insisted their journalists must take or leave the measly three per cent offer on the table, they have shown no such restraint when it comes to awarding themselves pay rises.

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One of the factors which motivated Reach’s journalists to vote overwhelmingly for strike action was the decision by two of the top managers, chief executive Jim Mullen and chief financial officer Simon Fuller, to increase their own pay by 700 per cent. Their annual remuneration is now £4,089,000 and £3,391,000 respectively.

To provide some perspective, trainee journalists on Reach titles locally were, until recently, paid less than £20,000 and senior journalists just £25,000 – in a part of the country where the cost of housing and transport is increasingly comparable with London.

The company’s shareholders have also done very well. £14m is to be paid to them next month in a half-yearly dividend. Had it been shared instead with staff – the people who helped to create the wealth the company is so keen to hand out, albeit not with them – the company could have afforded to give them a seven per cent rise.

In total, 14 journalists have left the Bristol newsroom alone since the start of 2022 – well over half the company’s editorial staff in the city.

But it’s not just young journalists in their first jobs who can’t afford to work for Reach; experienced journalists are also leaving in droves. And, just to complete a thoroughly vicious circle, those who leave are not being replaced, piling even more work and pressure on those who remain.

Journalists are expected by the company to live in the communities on which they report, which makes good sense. However, the low wages paid to young reporters mean they struggle to find anywhere in Bristol where they can afford to live.

Reach employs hundreds of talented journalists, who are motivated by a desire to keep the public informed. However, learning what’s happening in their neighbourhoods should not require them to become users of their local foodbanks or to take second jobs.

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On Friday, staff will be picketing the building intended to be their full-time workplace in the city centre. Reach has failed fully to open the Baldwin Street office, leaving staff to work largely from home.

Consequently, journalists camped in their bedsits or shared houses watch senior management on Zoom calls, sitting in large houses with their own studies, demanding yet more work from them.

It should be no surprise to their bosses that staff are so angry, leading to a surge in union membership.

We believe Reach should be trying to resolve the dispute and come up with a solution which addresses the financial pressures its journalists and their families are facing. The NUJ has made it clear we are willing to get round the table and sort things out constructively.

Tomorrow, however, we would ask everyone who can, whether members of TUC-affiliated unions or not, to join us on our picket line and demonstrate against the bullying tactics of a greedy, out-of-touch management.

James Garrett is chair of the Bristol branch of the National Union of Journalists

Main photo: Simon Chapman

Read next:

• Journalists in Bristol to go on strike for first time since 1970s
• ‘My work experience with Bristol24/7 was the perfect opportunity’
• NUJ offers to mediate between mayor’s office and journalists as boycott continues 

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