ICEM UK affiliate Unite won union recognition for newspaper printing workers at a plant in Worcester, a city in west-central England in Worcestershire County. Workers, by 100%, balloted for Unite in voting conducted by UK’s Advisory, Conciliation, and Arbitration Service (ACAS) recently.

The printing plant is owned by Newsquest Plc., a subsidiary of Gannett, the big US-based media group. Gannett purchased Newsquest’s assets in the UK in 1999 for £904 million. Unite has collective agreements at other worksites of Newsquest, which publishes some 11 daily newspapers and scores of other print publications across the UK.

“This is a great achievement for all our members at Worcester who now have a framework in place to start negotiating on issues that matter to them,” said Unite Regional Officer Ted Scott.