media guardian story

Local newspaper publisher Newsquest has told prepress staff at some of its titles that their jobs will be outsourced to India.
Prepress staff at papers in Sussex and Wiltshire, who design ads and check editorial pages before they are sent to the printers, have been told their positions are at risk.
Newsquest Sussex, publisher of Brighton's Argus newspaper, announced that 21 jobs will go as work is outsourced to a third-party supplier, Express KCS, an American company with operations in India.Staff were told of the move last week and there is now a four-week consultation period before the notice of termination of contracts.
At present there are 31 staff in prepress - 22 full-time and nine part-time - which are set to be cut to the equivalent of 10 full-time jobs.
The prepress staff design ads and check editorial pages for quality before sending them to the printers, which are based in the same building, Argus House, at Hollingbury.
Journalists at the titles fear that sending pages electronically to and from India before they are printed each morning in Brighton could jeopardise the quality of Sussex's daily newspaper, the Argus.
Steve Sibbald, national officer for newspapers at the Unite union which represents the workers, condemned Newsquest's actions as "a worrying development".
He said staff at Newsquest Wiltshire, which prints titles including the Swindon Advertiser, were also told last week that a dozen prepress jobs would be outsourced.
Newsquest said in a statement given to staff whose jobs are at risk that the company is "continually looking at production efficiencies", with a new software system in the pipeline.
"In addition, we are proposing to move a substantial proportion of our advertising setting in Brighton to a third-party supplier Express KCS who are an American company with operations in India," the statement added.
"The combination of fully electronic workflow, improvements for our property net system and the service from KCS would enable us to run the prepress operation in Brighton with fewer staff."


Globalisation
It is thought that Newsquest has been outsourcing work to India for about six months from Stourbridge in the West Midlands, although it is understood no jobs have been lost there.
Sibald said: "We are not whining about globalisation. That is old news. What is worrying is that these titles sell themselves as local papers for local people.
"But at the same time they are making local people who aren't on huge salaries redundant and moving their jobs 5,000 miles away to India where people will work in bad conditions for far less money," he added.
"Newsquest is a profitable company and this is a bloody con.
"PDFs can be sent electronically from Worcester or Mumbai or Delhi. But what is at risk is the origination and the local feel of the papers."
Staff numbers have already been cut at Newsquest Sussex this year, with two of the company's monthly magazines axed within the past month.
The Brighton Source, a glossy entertainment magazine covering music, clubs, fashion and food, was shut down with the loss of two editing and design jobs.
Rocks, an ethical lifestyle magazine covering environmental issues, was also closed and its editor made redundant.
Newsquest Media Group, a subsidiary of US newspaper giant the Gannett Corporation, publishes more than 300 newspapers nationwide.
Newsquest Sussex prints the Argus - formerly the Evening Argus - every Monday to Saturday and a series of free weekly Leader and Life titles across the county.
Newsquest managing directors at Sussex, Wiltshire and Stourbridge had not responded to requests for comment by the time of publication. Leighton Jones, Newsquest's group print director, declined to comment.

THIS ARTICLE IS IMPORTANT AS IT LOOKS INTO A NEWPAPER COMPANY WHO HAVE MADE WORKERS REDUNDANT, AS THE POSITIONS ARE BEING FLED TO PEOPLE WHO LIVE IN INDIA. TOWARDS THE END OF THE ARTICLE THERE IS A SECTION ON GLOBALISATION WHICH IS ALSO AN IMPORTANT FACTOR AS THIS 'LOCAL' NEWSPAPER IS LOOKING TO EMPLOY PEOPLE ABROAD, FOR LESS MONEY AND WORSE WORKING CONDITIONS, LEAVES US TO ASK IS THIS REALLY A SIMPLE 'LOCAL' NEWSPAPER?