STRIKE!

Striking journalists from local Guardian newspapers will be turning Sutton and Twickenham into the Wild West this Wednesday and Thursday in protest at a new round of job cuts.
 
National Union of Journalists(NUJ) members will be dressing as cowboys to highlight a new round of redundancies announced by Newsquest South London, which will see the sports and leisure department closed and leave nine* people without jobs.
 
The demonstration, which will run between 8am and 5.30pm both days, will involve journalists picketing the Sutton and Twickenham offices and handing out leaflets in the centre of both towns.
 
News reporters have been told they will be required to take on the workload from the axed sports and leisure team, which the union has so far rejected.
 
Our NUJ chapel believes these redundancies will be seriously detrimental to the quality of our newspapers, which have already been cut in size and feature increasing amounts of advertising rather than editorial. 
 
The editorial department has offered Newsquest a new online revenue-generating idea, which is already being rolled out in Sutton and Twickenham, to help save the £210k Newsquest South London says it must cut from its annual budget.
 
In return our NUJ chapel has offered to call off the strike if the consultation period of those undergoing redundancy were to be extended until September 1, to allow time to see if the idea could make enough money to save their jobs. Management has turned down the offer. 
 
NUJ members are also working to rule over these redundancies, and will be doing so for as long as necessary.

Our ten titles are the Croydon Guardian, Epsom Guardian, Elmbridge Guardian, Kingston Guardian, Streatham Guardian, Sutton Guardian, Wandsworth Guardian, Wimbledon Guardian, Surrey Comet and Richmond & Twickenham Times.
 
Picket lines:
Sutton
The Quadrant
Quadrant House
SM2 5AS
 
Twickenham
Allied House
29-39 London Road
TW1 3SZ
  
*Nine people have been put forward for redundancy. However two of them are on a job share, so eight jobs are set to go.