Coventry journalists strike over low pay

Newspaper journalists in Coventry will meet this afternoon to decide whether strike action goes beyond Friday in the latest chapter of the low pay in journalism dispute.

An estimated 30 journalists from the Coventry Evening Telegraph, Nuneaton Tribune, Bedworth Echo, and Hinkley Times gathered in today’s salary strike against their publisher Trinity Mirror.

Secretary of the Coventry NUJ chapel and Education Reporter at the Coventry Evening Telegraph Lucy Lynch said strikers were “particularly concerned” about trainee reporters’ salaries. She admitted no trainees were on the picket line, and guessed some were worried about speaking out.

She said: “It’s possible for a trainee to start on £11.5k and we just feel that’s not enough”.

The NUJ’s Northern Organiser Miles Barter commented: “At most other papers, trainees are earning well over £15k. These weekly papers here are paying a long way below the market rate.”

A spokesman for Coventry Evening Newspapers said Trinity Mirror “has already improved its offer [to increase pay] on several occasions in the interests of finding a solution and has no intention of reviewing its decision.”

Trinity Mirror’s 2004 operating profits were £253m. While the NUJ report 80 per cent of editorial staff were in favour of the strike, Trinity Mirror put the figure at 40 per cent.

The strike has not affected production and first edition newspapers have been printed as usual.