Striking journalists hail 2% pay offer

Journalists at the Southern Daily Echo are hailing their recent bouts of strike action as a success after being offered a 2% pay rise. Their publisher, Newsquest/Gannett , announced the offer last Friday, during the final day of the National Union of Journalists' three-day strike. Though the Southampton paper's management had previously indicated that there would not be a pay increase in 2011, the rise will be effective from 1 July. The NUJ chapel at the Southern Daily Echo - which makes up around 75% of editorial staff at the paper - will now seek the reinstatement of individual banding payments, which have been suspended for more than two-and-a-half years. The journalists have taken part in strike action for a total of seven days since November in protest at the company's pay freeze. The announcement is not a great surprise because Newsquest offered a 2% pay increase in late December to its staff working on the Northern Echo and its sister titles in Darlington, The Press in York and the Telegraph & Argus in Bradford. But Darlington NUJ members have continued to hold strikes because they oppose job cuts. They were joined on the picket line for a couple of hours last week by Peter Greenwood , a former editor of the Newsquest title, the Craven Herald and Pioneer . He took early retirement last June, saying he was not impressed by Newsquest's running of the company. He made a donation to the strike fund. The Darlington strikers marched through town on Thursday, supported by other trades unionists, to publicise their case. They also joined staff from Southampton and Brighton ( The Argus ) to demonstrate outside Newsquest's headquarters in Weybridge, Surrey, on Friday. Brighton Argus journalists staged their third 48-hour stoppage last week, but there must be a good chance now that they too will be offered the 2% increase.