Journalists at the Mirror, Express and dozens of other newspapers have called off a planned strike just hours before it was due to begin.
Staff were due to strike on Friday in protest at low pay, but have postponed the industrial action to allow further talks to take place.
Parent company Reach had repeatedly insisted there was no way it could offer an improved pay deal – but has asked to reopen negotiations when faced with the reality that the strike would go ahead.
Journalists had been offered a 3% pay rise, which they said was not enough to cope with the cost of living crisis. Many junior local reporters at Reach – which also owns news sites such as the Manchester Evening News and the Live brand – say they struggle to get by on salaries that can be under £20,000 a year.
Following a lengthy and contentious discussion, the National Union of Journalists has agreed to suspend the first day of planned strike action on Friday to enable further pay talks. One source said the decision to call off the strike was not unanimous, and it is now up to bosses to make a substantial pay offer if they want to avoid further strikes scheduled for next week.
Many journalists at Reach say they have been radicalised by the company’s hardline attitude to industrial action, which included asking staff to declare if they would be working on strike days. This was interpreted as a way of the company working out who was a union member. Multiple staff members said it would be hard to rebuild relations with managers.
A particular bone of contention is the £4m-pay package awarded to the Reach chief executive, Jim Mullen, last year. The company insists that, because much of this payment was in the form of Reach shares which have since collapsed in value, the sum is actually much lower.
In common with other publishers, Reach is having to deal with increased newsprint costs and the prospect of advertising being hit in a recession.
Even staff at the Express, which has often criticised trade unions in editorials, voted to strike. This led the RMT union to send a message of solidarity to the newspaper’s staff.
