NUJ members at STV vote overwhelmingly in favour of strike action
NUJ members at STV have voted overwhelmingly to take industrial action over the Scottish broadcaster’s plans to make compulsory redundancies and to axe the STV North edition of the News at 6.
A formal ballot of staff showed 94% in favour of strike and 98% for action short of strike on a turnout of 82%.
Potential strikes could happen before Christmas, although no industrial action is currently expected.
The NUJ’s chapel at STV has already passed two separate motions of no confidence in the senior management team, as well as a separate one in the poor handling of the redundancies process.
The move follows STV’s plans to produce just one news programme for its two licence areas in Scotland, and to cut up to 60 jobs across the business, half of which would be in the newsroom. Some of the proposals require Ofcom approval, and the regulator’s public consultation is expected to begin in the next few weeks.
Regardless of the outcome of that consultation, however, the company is still going ahead with making potential compulsory redundancies among journalists with some staff having been told they are at risk in recent weeks.
STV plc owns the only two licences which lie outside of the ITV network for STV Central and STV North. The two News at 6 programmes are a Scottish media success story, regularly outperforming BBC Scotland’s 18:30 Reporting Scotland programme, and are frequently one of the top two most watched programmes in the evening.
If Ofcom rules that STV can go ahead with its plans, these two programmes will be replaced with a single programme across the two licence areas, with no separate news for the Glasgow, Edinburgh, Dundee and Aberdeen areas. However STV said that if they are not allowed to make this change, they will still axe the STV North edition in its current form, moving presentation from Aberdeen to Glasgow, and pre-recording the programme mid-afternoon.
STV blames a fall in advertising and production bookings has caused a drop in income. The NUJ argues the situation is because of the company’s own financial mismanagement, and that an investment in a new commercial radio station at STV is being paid for with the jobs of journalists.
The proposals have faced unprecedented political, union, business and viewer opposition with leaders of all main political parties in Scotland uniting to write a joint letter opposing the plans. STV management have faced a hostile reception when called before committees at both Holyrood and Westminster.
Nick McGowan-Lowe, NUJ National Organiser for Scotland, said:
“Voting for industrial action is a step that no worker takes lightly. This result shows the strength of feeling within our members at STV, both around the cuts, and the way in which management has handled them.
“While we acknowledge the progress that STV management have already made in attempting to reduce the number of compulsory redundancies, the plan they are proposing for axing the STV North edition of the News at 6 is bad for viewers, bad for journalism, and bad for the North of Scotland.
“This is a dispute about quality journalism, and making sure the north of Scotland can continue to have access to reliable, trusted, quality news coverage that is routed in their communities. We will continue to fight for every single job in the newsroom.”
The NUJ at STV has a history of taking industrial action. Between March and May 2024 NUJ members at STV went on strike over pay, taking the News at 6 programmes off air on both strike days. In December 2022 the NUJ balloted members over pay but did not take action after the company tabled a new offer.