Three-day strike over Record jobs

Daily Record and Sunday Mail journalists are on strike

Staff at the Daily Record and Sunday Mail are holding a three-day strike as they continue protests over job cuts.

Owners Trinity Mirror had said that 70 job losses were necessary to safeguard the future of the papers in a rapidly changing media landscape.

A total of 36 journalists out of a staff of about 240 have already been accepted for voluntary redundancy.

The company wants to see at least a further 18 journalists take compulsory redundancy at the two titles.

The action follows a two-day walkout and one day strikes earlier this month.

Compulsory redundancies

The latest action began at midnight and will last until Monday morning.

A spokesman for the Daily Record and Sunday Mail Ltd said the company had since tried to reduce the number of compulsory redundancies.

He said: "Without any constructive input from the NUJ we have worked hard to significantly reduce the number of staff at risk of compulsory redundancy to 18.

"It is disappointing that our discussions with the NUJ have failed to find common ground as they have done so with another publisher in Manchester where, due to the unprecedented economic circumstances, they have agreed to accept 11 compulsory redundancies."

Representatives of the National Union of Journalists (NUJ) at the Glasgow headquarters of the papers said that they objected to the scale of the cuts.

A spokesman said that the Daily Record and Sunday Mail were profitable papers which made £20m last year.

The "draconian" staff cuts and threats of compulsory redundancy were "detrimental to journalism in Scotland", he said.

The circulation of the Sunday Mail has fallen in recent times to a current level of 416,169, but it has retained its position as the country's most popular Sunday newspaper.

The most recent records show that Trinity Mirror made operating profits of more than £145m in 2008 - of which £68m came from local media. The company's profit margin is almost 17%.

In the last 10 years it has returned more than £520m to shareholders.

One member of staff said journalists across all titles and departments, including news, sport and production, appeared to be affected by the compulsory redundancies, including newer members of staff as well as experienced journalists who had been working on the newspapers for a number of years.

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