UPDATE, TUESDAY 21ST NOV: The strike and work-to-rule has now been postponed pending new talks with management

A strike and a work-to-rule has been set next week for the Glasgow-based Herald, Evening Times and Sunday Herald. NUJ members at the chapel, who voted 80% in favour of industrial action, after increasing difficulties between journalists and management.

An Herald insider described last month’s moving of pay dates without notification from the 20th of each month to the 26th as “the straw that broke the camel’s back”.

From Tuesday to Thursday next week, NUJ members will work to rule, with a walkout from Friday 2pm until Saturday 10am. The strike will affect all three titles at the Newsquest-owned group, but particularly the Sunday Herald.

The print union AMICUS is to ballot its members as to whether to support the strike. If they join the NUJ, then severe disruption will result, which will also affect the Scottish Daily Mail and Scottish Mail on Sunday which are printed on Newsquest’s presses.

The news comes on the day that the NUJ’s Scottish Office comitted itself to backing legal action against the Herald over what it euphemistically described as “inappropriate use” of freelance photographs on the newspaper’s online edition.

Photographers who may find themselves sympathetic to the cause are reminded that the fewer commissions accepted or pictures supplied during the strike action, the greater the pressure will be on the three titles.