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October 20, 2008

Emap Public Sector threatening industrial action

By Rachael Gallagher

Staff at Emap Public Sector are considering industrial action in a dispute over pay.

Emap management has made two offers of either 2.75 per cent backdated to April, or 3.5 per cent starting in October and a further half a per cent backdated to April.

The NUJ chapel has said that the minimum offer it is prepared to put to members would be 3.5 per cent backdated to April, and it is now conducting what it calls an indicative ballot asking members if they would be prepared to take part in industrial action if their terms are not met.

Emap Public Sector includes the Nursing times, Health Service Journal and Local Government Chronicle, and according to the NUJ there are 30 editorial there staff, 20 of whom are in the NUJ. The titles are part of the Emap business to business division which was bought by Guardian Media Group in a joint venture with Apax Partners in December 2007.

The pay dispute has been going on since February, and NUJ Father of Chapel Richard Staines said that it was sucessive low pay deals – with journalists receiving below-inflation rises in 2006 and 2007 – that had lead to this point.

He said: ‘We felt we needed to make a stand in these difficult economic times to make sure that our wages aren’t undermined. We want them to give us a decent amount of backpay, and they may be able to call this off if they improve their offer. We just can’t accept what they’re offering at the moment.”

The NUJ is expected to announce the outcome of the indicative ballot at the end of this week.

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