It's hardly the time to be full of the joys of the season given employers are using the Christmas break to make redundancies, cut pay, close offices and reorganise in the hope that people won't want to take any action over the holiday period - we've even been forewarned of more announcements tomorrow.
These employers are all heart. I wonder how some of them sleep at night.
A head of steam is building up for the union's Jobs Summit taking place on 24 January...and expect to see some action early in the new year at two or three regional newspaper centres.
Back to the end of last week - met with the General Secretaries of Equity, Musicians Union and Bectu to discuss our work together over the coming year - and in particular the review of public service broadcasting which affects us all in different ways.
Then it was off to Sutton for a meeting about planned redundancies at Reed Business Information under the Disputes Procedure. No joy. Whilst we pretty much resolved one individual case there are two real outstanding issues on which there was no significant movement from the company - and we're refering the matter to ACAS in the new year.
A quick dash to White Hart Lane to see Tottenham fight back from a pathetic first half display to grab a 2-2 draw with Spartak Moscow...and qualify for the next stage of the UEFA Cup. On the way home we dream of a trip to Florence, Bordeaux or somewhere warm and beautiful. We get drawn against Shaktar Donetsk and then probably Aston Villa. The Ukraine and Birmingham. Oh, thanks.
On Friday we have a telephone conference with some of our reps from Newsquest, Trinity and Johnston Press to discuss some action against the cuts in the new year and we say a sad farewell to Linda York who is retiring after more than 30 years working for the NUJ. We'll really miss her. We run through the new online membership system and make a few amendments to try to make it as easy as possible for potential members to join...and catch up on letters and emails.
Today we've finally signed off all the documents relating to the union's staff pension scheme - effectively we have put up to £2m worth of NUJ assets in to the fund. We don't actually have to pay the money over until March 2011 but it is still a huge commitment for us. My hand shook a little as I signed the papers.
This afternoon I've staff meetings - and then I'll quickly try to clear emails and post before heading off for my Christmas break.
A big thank you and best wishes to all those NUJ members, reps, officials and staff members who have worked so hard for members during 2008. Those of you getting a break - enjoy it. Those of you working - remember if you're in trouble, I'm on call....
See you in 2009 - I hope it's a better year for pensions, jobs, local media, Tottenham....
Monday, December 22, 2008
Wednesday, December 17, 2008
Cutbacks crisis - more action on the cards
I'm uninspired. I've just spent an hour and a half at the TUC General Council with Alastair Darling. With many people you can say they talk a good fight - but he didn't. Even when challenged on the government's punitive welfare reforms he simply denied they were punitive. If taking away the benefits of those who don't get a job when two million are unemployed is not punitive then I don't know what is.
General Council members raised lots of valuable points about the failure of regulations, the growing gulf between the rich and poor whilst also welcoming moves to raise the top rate of tax but we remain bemused by the failure to act decisively over the tax avoidance of the big corporations (costing the UK economy billions a year) and halt the repossessions affecting thousands of people and an increasing number of journalists who are losing their jobs.
I was able to raise in the subsequent discussion the cuts at Newsquest in Glasgow and the obscene manner in which management there are threatening everyone with the axe but allowing people to reapply for their own jobs on worse terms and conditions. There's a great clip from Newsnight Scotland of a senior manager trying to justify it. Watch the reporter's reaction when he admits that if it was another company acting in this manner the paper would call it a scandal. Priceless.
But we did get some good news - the European Parliament have voted by a huge majority to call for the end of the UK opt-out of the Working Time Regulations. Hurrah! Thousands of journalists are forced on pain of losing their job to sign an opt-out and work excessive hours, damaging their health week in, week out. No journalist minds putting in extra hours when a big story breaks but the culture of long hours is wrecking people's lives and it allows media organisations to get away with cutting jobs and making up for short-staffing by forcing others to work longer hours. There;s still a long way to go before the opt-out ends but the unions' lobbying - we wrote to every UK MEP last week - has won us the first round.
Our campaign against the job cuts and pay freezes continues. Down in Exmouth staff are fighting to save their office and we've sent them a message of support. Strike votes have been successful at Darlington and in York. We've launched a new web area with a fancy google map highlighting some of the cuts taking place. And we've been discussing co-ordinated protests in different cities and co-ordinated action with our sister union Unite.
General Council members raised lots of valuable points about the failure of regulations, the growing gulf between the rich and poor whilst also welcoming moves to raise the top rate of tax but we remain bemused by the failure to act decisively over the tax avoidance of the big corporations (costing the UK economy billions a year) and halt the repossessions affecting thousands of people and an increasing number of journalists who are losing their jobs.
I was able to raise in the subsequent discussion the cuts at Newsquest in Glasgow and the obscene manner in which management there are threatening everyone with the axe but allowing people to reapply for their own jobs on worse terms and conditions. There's a great clip from Newsnight Scotland of a senior manager trying to justify it. Watch the reporter's reaction when he admits that if it was another company acting in this manner the paper would call it a scandal. Priceless.
But we did get some good news - the European Parliament have voted by a huge majority to call for the end of the UK opt-out of the Working Time Regulations. Hurrah! Thousands of journalists are forced on pain of losing their job to sign an opt-out and work excessive hours, damaging their health week in, week out. No journalist minds putting in extra hours when a big story breaks but the culture of long hours is wrecking people's lives and it allows media organisations to get away with cutting jobs and making up for short-staffing by forcing others to work longer hours. There;s still a long way to go before the opt-out ends but the unions' lobbying - we wrote to every UK MEP last week - has won us the first round.
Our campaign against the job cuts and pay freezes continues. Down in Exmouth staff are fighting to save their office and we've sent them a message of support. Strike votes have been successful at Darlington and in York. We've launched a new web area with a fancy google map highlighting some of the cuts taking place. And we've been discussing co-ordinated protests in different cities and co-ordinated action with our sister union Unite.
Monday, December 15, 2008
Even man flu can't stop the resistance to job cuts
The dreaded man flu (a particularly virulent strain!) caused me to have my first day off sick for years last week - hence the lack of posts as I rushed to try and catch up with other work - or that's my excuse and I'm sticking to it.
Have just confirmed this morning that Nick Davies, author of Flat Earth News will open the NUJ's Jobs Summit - Protecting journalism, defending journalists - on January 24. The meeting is building up to be quite an event as ever more dire predictions about the future of parts of the industry reach us. Claire Enders predicts a third of regional newspapers, two national newspapers and half of the jobs in the regional media to have gone by 2013. With Trinity Mirror having already axed 44 titles and Newsquest announcing a further 11 title closures, her predictions are looking less and less 'out there'.
We've already started the fight back with local campaigns being built, industrial action ballots announced and negotiations proceeding. A couple of surprise protests are planned too! But it's clear we are going to have to step up the resistance to this dismantling of sections of the industry - and the Jobs Summit will give us the chance to co-ordinate action across more sections of the industry. The companies are not unprofitable and many major analysts expect them to remain so in to the future so the slash and burn is not about saving an industry but about maintaining artificially high profit levels. Owners can no longer expect to fleece the industry to the tune of 30%-plus, they are going to have to accept lower profit margins. If they won't, they should get out and let people who care about newspapers' public service role take over.
Much of last week (and I expect the next few months) has been taken up with dealing with the fall out from this crisis.
But other issues have needed dealing with too. I was in Ireland last Monday doing interviews for our vacant assistant organiser role. Congratulations to Ian McGuiness who takes up the role in January.
I have also had staff meetings with our broadcasting and membership departments and worked with Michelle Stanistreet and Lena Calvert to put together our response to the TUC Equality audit. I've taken part in an NEC telephone conference about the staff pension scheme and met with the GFTU and Express Newspapers to talk about the redundancies as well as...oh, loads of other things.
With the threat to jobs in the industry there is clearly a major knock-on impact on the union - and not least our financial position. This morning I'm sitting down with our finance manager and Michelle to try to work out the implications over the next three to four years. Gulp!
Have just confirmed this morning that Nick Davies, author of Flat Earth News will open the NUJ's Jobs Summit - Protecting journalism, defending journalists - on January 24. The meeting is building up to be quite an event as ever more dire predictions about the future of parts of the industry reach us. Claire Enders predicts a third of regional newspapers, two national newspapers and half of the jobs in the regional media to have gone by 2013. With Trinity Mirror having already axed 44 titles and Newsquest announcing a further 11 title closures, her predictions are looking less and less 'out there'.
We've already started the fight back with local campaigns being built, industrial action ballots announced and negotiations proceeding. A couple of surprise protests are planned too! But it's clear we are going to have to step up the resistance to this dismantling of sections of the industry - and the Jobs Summit will give us the chance to co-ordinate action across more sections of the industry. The companies are not unprofitable and many major analysts expect them to remain so in to the future so the slash and burn is not about saving an industry but about maintaining artificially high profit levels. Owners can no longer expect to fleece the industry to the tune of 30%-plus, they are going to have to accept lower profit margins. If they won't, they should get out and let people who care about newspapers' public service role take over.
Much of last week (and I expect the next few months) has been taken up with dealing with the fall out from this crisis.
But other issues have needed dealing with too. I was in Ireland last Monday doing interviews for our vacant assistant organiser role. Congratulations to Ian McGuiness who takes up the role in January.
I have also had staff meetings with our broadcasting and membership departments and worked with Michelle Stanistreet and Lena Calvert to put together our response to the TUC Equality audit. I've taken part in an NEC telephone conference about the staff pension scheme and met with the GFTU and Express Newspapers to talk about the redundancies as well as...oh, loads of other things.
With the threat to jobs in the industry there is clearly a major knock-on impact on the union - and not least our financial position. This morning I'm sitting down with our finance manager and Michelle to try to work out the implications over the next three to four years. Gulp!
Tuesday, December 02, 2008
Fight back starts here
Saturday's emergency union reps meeting was excellent - good turnout, focused discussion and most importantly a clear plan of action to unfold over the coming weeks and months. There are measures to support those facing job cuts now, measures to tackle the pay freezes imposed by some companies and most importantly a plan for co-ordinating the activity across the local newspaper industry.
On Monday morning we set about getting the message out to our members that the fight back starts here. The story was picked up by a range of media yesterday. I also wrote a piece for Media Guardian and Tribune (to be published on Thursday) on our campaign.
Here's some of the coverage:
Media Guardian
Journalism.co.uk
Hold the Front page
Jon Slattery's Blog
Press Gazette
Found time to meet with the NUJ Officials chapel union rep to discuss staffing issues and then met with lawyers from Liberty to discuss a legal case we have an interest in.
Oh, and caught up on those hundreds of pesky emails...!
On Monday morning we set about getting the message out to our members that the fight back starts here. The story was picked up by a range of media yesterday. I also wrote a piece for Media Guardian and Tribune (to be published on Thursday) on our campaign.
Here's some of the coverage:
Media Guardian
Journalism.co.uk
Hold the Front page
Jon Slattery's Blog
Press Gazette
Found time to meet with the NUJ Officials chapel union rep to discuss staffing issues and then met with lawyers from Liberty to discuss a legal case we have an interest in.
Oh, and caught up on those hundreds of pesky emails...!
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