DAILY RECORD AND SUNDAY MAIL PLANNED STRIKES.

DAILY RECORD AND SUNDAY MAIL PLANNED STRIKES.

DISPUTE UNDERLINES CHALLENGES FROM TABLOID TO BROADSHEET.

Commenting on news that journalists at the Daily Record and Sunday Mail are to go on strike for a further two days in response to staff job losses, SNP Westminster Media and Culture spokesperson, Pete Wishart MP, said:

“The ongoing dispute at the Daily Record and Sunday Mail underlines the crisis in Scotland’s newspaper industry which seems to be getting worse every week. We now have issues in practically every title in Scotland from tabloid to broadsheet.

“There are clearly serious challenges for titles in the current economic environment, and it is essential that management work with the workforce in order to address them. The heavy handed and inflexible way that management have so far conducted industrial relations so far suggests that lessons of the past have not been learned.

“Scotland needs a pluralistic and dynamic written press that reflects our national life, parliament and culture, and the ongoing disputes threaten that viability.

“I have managed to get the Scottish Affairs Committee to look at the situation in the Scottish Press and it will report soon but it is important that management and unions work together to resolve the many immediate difficulties and challenges.”