Finally time to draw some breath in what is a hectic period for the union.
Quick update - Tuesday I met Journalist editor Tim Gopsill to discuss the next stage of our web integration plans before meeting staff union reps to discuss the union's financial situation and our response to it. Barry Fitzpatrick, Michelle Stanistreet and I then met Malcolm Vickers, head of HR for Johnston Press to press our concerns about jobs cuts, centralised subbing plans, pay freezes and so on and to get an update on company plans and finances. Tuesday evening I did a media interview (as a source so i'm saying no more!).
Wednesday morning I and Sue Harris met with Mike Danson the joint owner of New Statesman for constructive talks on the union's recognition claim. There is an agreement in principle to recognise the union - we've now given ourselves a 4-week period to flesh out the details of the collective bargaining agreement.
I then did something I hate doing - had to pull out of a conference at the last minute. I was due to speak at the British Institute of Human Rights Conference but got tied up helping out a chapel about to go in to dispute after they received legal threats from their management.
Thursday morning I met with Stephen Pearse to build on plans agreed at the Jobs Summit in respect of the debate on media ownership, state aid and our plans for lobbies and protests. More details will be announced shortly...and some may just be a surprise!
I then did an interview on media portrayals of Islam and muslims before heading across to The Independent to talk to chapel negotiators about the next stage of the campaign there over threatened redundancies. A quick dash across to Shepherd's Bush for Bectu General Secretary Gerry Morrissey and I to meet the new head of the BBC in Salford, Peter Salmon and the HR team (or People people as they are) followed by a meeting of the joint unions national reps with the Salford team.
This morning I went to New Scotland Yard to speak to around 50 senior police officers as part of their Advanced Public Order Officers training course. This was one of the initiatives to come out of our meetings with the Home Office to try to ensure the media guidelines are better undertstood and enforced. I ran through a number of examples of the types of complaints we'd had, tackled some of the thorny topics raised by questions about cordons, media pens, the papparazi, who should make moral decisions about what pictures can and can't be taken (i'll give you a clue - not the police), how journalists identify themselves, how we enforce our code of conduct (this gave me the chance to have a rant about Thatcher's anti-union laws) and many other topics. It was a useful, if gruelling exercise.
Back to the office to try and catch up on some of the emails/correspondence/bills which have been neglected for a few days before heading to London Metropolitan University to address a UCU/Unison job cuts rally. Amongst the things I said are:
"There is a fundamental reason why every trade unionist should be standing with you.
UK PLC is in recession. Hundreds of thousands of jobs will go. At such a time further and higher education becomes not less but more important. Expanding education is a vital response to economic crisis. London Met, a vibrant university with a mix of class and ethnicity and culture must be central to helping re-skill and retrain Londoners facing a daunting future not adding to the unemployment figures. Education cuts are a false economy".
Now I've drawn breath I'm getting ready to write to Ofcom about S4C, the BBC about the safety of journalists and looking forward to a weekend of putting together Informed, the NEC newsletter.
Friday, January 30, 2009
Tuesday, January 27, 2009
Hitting the DEC
Saturday’s Jobs Summit was hugely inspiring and set the basis for a real fight to tackle redundancies and start turning the tide against profiteering in local media.
Reports of the conference can be found at the following sites:
http://blogs.journalism.co.uk/editors/2009/01/26/nuj-jobs-crisis-summit-round-up-murdoch-and-dacre-have-brought-us-into-disrepute/
http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2009/jan/26/nuj-day-of-action-newspaper-job-cuts
http://www.pressgazette.co.uk/story.asp?sectioncode=1&storycode=42911&c=1
http://www.nuj.org.uk/innerPagenuj.html?docid=1088
Reports of the conference can be found at the following sites:
http://blogs.journalism.co.uk/editors/2009/01/26/nuj-jobs-crisis-summit-round-up-murdoch-and-dacre-have-brought-us-into-disrepute/
http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2009/jan/26/nuj-day-of-action-newspaper-job-cuts
http://www.pressgazette.co.uk/story.asp?sectioncode=1&storycode=42911&c=1
http://www.nuj.org.uk/innerPagenuj.html?docid=1088
Picture: (c) Pete JenkinsAnd no sooner had Nick Davies suggested we blow the whistle on employers cuts which damage journalism than we were on the campaign. Let us know how the cuts in your newsroom/company are damaging your ability to deliver quality media – all in total confidence.
The union’s National Executive Council met all day on Friday – discussing the jobs crisis (we gave authority for industrial action ballots at a record number of workplaces), a new recruitment strategy, the situation facing journalists in Gaza, the future of public service broadcasting and the Digital Britain report, recognition at the New Statesman, BBC pay, copyright and John McDonnell, secretary of the NUJ’s Parliamentary Group may have been banned from Parliament after his mace-wielding antics, but he’s always welcome at the NUJ. He kicked off a debate on media ownership and state aid for the media industry which is to become a major topic for the union over the coming weeks. The NEC backed plans to establish a commission to consider new business models, regulation and ownership rules.
We’ll be inviting people to participate over the next few days.
The NEC also discussed at length the tough financial climate facing the NUJ with the likelihood that membership will be hit by the redundancy crisis. Even with just a 2% year on year membership fall for the next three years the union would have a shortfall of £500,000 per annum by 2012. It means the NEC is having to look hard at how we can save money.
Today has been dominated by the DEC appeal fallout. Along with Bectu General Secretary Gerry Morrissey I have written to Mark Thompson and wrote a Tribune column on the issue. I’ve also spoken to some senior BBC journalists who are angry and feel betrayed by the decision and believe that the Balen Report – the report on BBC coverage of the conflict which the BBC are fighting to keep under wraps - is at least one driving factor in the decision.
Then I answered 94 emails – and wrote this.
Friday, January 23, 2009
Local media concerns top agenda
What a day. In the office at 6.30am - get some work done and across to Oxford for the Media Convention. Managed to get a question in to Andy Burnham about profitable local newspapers begging for state aid, trying to make the point that any aid of any sort should have stringent conditions about investment in editorial, stopping profiteering and a commitment to public service.
Then was part of a panel in the session The News is Dead, Long Live the News along with Peter Horrocks, Lord Norman Fowler and Charlie Beckett from Polis. Of course news isn't dead but it is danger of being killed off by profiteering, poor management and reckless borrowing (that's my 7 minute speech in 20 words). There was a good degree of agreement that new media offers great new opportunities to journalism if companies invest in building quality content and serving local communities. Did a quick interview with Matt Wells at Media Guardian then dashed back to London and off to Fleet Street (yes, really) to do a BBC interview for the Money Programme about the crisis facing the media. Meant I had to miss the fantastic rally against job cuts at the FT with Tony Benn (yes, really) addressing almost 170 FT journalists and supporters.
Back to office to meet with various NEC members in advance of today's meeting, talking about finances, Saturday's Jobs Summit, the OFCOM report, journalists in Gaza and much more. Home at 11.30pm.
Yesterday I was at a meeting of all our BBC M/FoCs and then a joint meeting with BECTU reps at the BBC to talk about this year's pay claim and other industrial issues. Later in the day I was at the parliamentary launch of the Trade Union Co-ordinating Group with MPs and other trade union general secretaries. It was supposed to be hosted by John McDonnell, but after his mace waving in the Commons he's banned. Still he'll be allowed in to our National Executive today where he's giving his report from our Parliamentary Group. And he'll be welcome - we like people of principle!
Then was part of a panel in the session The News is Dead, Long Live the News along with Peter Horrocks, Lord Norman Fowler and Charlie Beckett from Polis. Of course news isn't dead but it is danger of being killed off by profiteering, poor management and reckless borrowing (that's my 7 minute speech in 20 words). There was a good degree of agreement that new media offers great new opportunities to journalism if companies invest in building quality content and serving local communities. Did a quick interview with Matt Wells at Media Guardian then dashed back to London and off to Fleet Street (yes, really) to do a BBC interview for the Money Programme about the crisis facing the media. Meant I had to miss the fantastic rally against job cuts at the FT with Tony Benn (yes, really) addressing almost 170 FT journalists and supporters.
Back to office to meet with various NEC members in advance of today's meeting, talking about finances, Saturday's Jobs Summit, the OFCOM report, journalists in Gaza and much more. Home at 11.30pm.
Yesterday I was at a meeting of all our BBC M/FoCs and then a joint meeting with BECTU reps at the BBC to talk about this year's pay claim and other industrial issues. Later in the day I was at the parliamentary launch of the Trade Union Co-ordinating Group with MPs and other trade union general secretaries. It was supposed to be hosted by John McDonnell, but after his mace waving in the Commons he's banned. Still he'll be allowed in to our National Executive today where he's giving his report from our Parliamentary Group. And he'll be welcome - we like people of principle!
Wednesday, January 21, 2009
Rearranging the deckchairs...?
It's official! Broadcasting regulator Ofcom has signed the death warrant of local news on ITV. Hundreds of ITV staff will leave in the coming weeks as news programmes are merged, axed or reduced in length. Viewers and citizens will lose out, local democracy will be damaged but ITV's shareholders will have been given a big boost as they take steps towards their final goal - ditching their public service commitments and becoming a purely commercial channel.
For Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland an as yet undefined consortia can bid for as yet undefined amounts of money to produce as yet undefined amounts of news for the nations. If the experience of contested funding for news elsewhere is anything to go by we'll see a competitive process that drives down the cost, quality, range and scope of news. It's not the answer.
The rest of Ofcom's report raises as many questions as it answers. Their plans so far are robbing Peter to pay Paul, taking money off one public service broadcaster and giving it to another or a consortia of others.
Here's our official take on it.
Alongside the Ofcom report we have the increasing clamour from newspaper owners for state aid to prop up the ailing newspaper industry. Does their greed know no bounds? Whilst they have made excessive profits over the past decade or so and failed to properly manage their businesses they now want taxpayers to bail them out - not because they are losing money but because they can't maintain such high profit levels. And on top of that they want further relaxations in media ownership rules as a way of solving "the crisis". Each time ownership rules have been relaxed we've been told this will solve the crisis, each time it has led to more job cuts, a fall in quality and a boost in profits - until the next crisis comes along. Any merger/takeover resulting from any relaxation of ownership rules should only be approved under conditions on investment, resources for news-gathering and employment rights. Anything less would simply be feeding the insatiable appetite of the corporate news industry.
So what else have i been up to? On Friday I took over as President of the Federation of Entertainment Unions and chaired the annual general meeting before meeting with the families of a number of murdered journalists - Kate Peyton, Anna Politkovskya, Roddy Scott - as well as media safety campaigners and the IFJ to talk about improving the support given to families and friends of journalists killed in the course of their work. On Saturday I spoke as chair of Justice for Colombia at a Latin America solidarity event at Bolivar Hall.
This week has so far been dominated by meetings going over budgets, staffing issues and pension funding and with preparing for today's meeting of BBC reps to talk about the pay claim for this year and getting ready for Saturday's Jobs Summit which has had to move to a bigger venue given the level of interest.
For Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland an as yet undefined consortia can bid for as yet undefined amounts of money to produce as yet undefined amounts of news for the nations. If the experience of contested funding for news elsewhere is anything to go by we'll see a competitive process that drives down the cost, quality, range and scope of news. It's not the answer.
The rest of Ofcom's report raises as many questions as it answers. Their plans so far are robbing Peter to pay Paul, taking money off one public service broadcaster and giving it to another or a consortia of others.
Here's our official take on it.
Alongside the Ofcom report we have the increasing clamour from newspaper owners for state aid to prop up the ailing newspaper industry. Does their greed know no bounds? Whilst they have made excessive profits over the past decade or so and failed to properly manage their businesses they now want taxpayers to bail them out - not because they are losing money but because they can't maintain such high profit levels. And on top of that they want further relaxations in media ownership rules as a way of solving "the crisis". Each time ownership rules have been relaxed we've been told this will solve the crisis, each time it has led to more job cuts, a fall in quality and a boost in profits - until the next crisis comes along. Any merger/takeover resulting from any relaxation of ownership rules should only be approved under conditions on investment, resources for news-gathering and employment rights. Anything less would simply be feeding the insatiable appetite of the corporate news industry.
So what else have i been up to? On Friday I took over as President of the Federation of Entertainment Unions and chaired the annual general meeting before meeting with the families of a number of murdered journalists - Kate Peyton, Anna Politkovskya, Roddy Scott - as well as media safety campaigners and the IFJ to talk about improving the support given to families and friends of journalists killed in the course of their work. On Saturday I spoke as chair of Justice for Colombia at a Latin America solidarity event at Bolivar Hall.
This week has so far been dominated by meetings going over budgets, staffing issues and pension funding and with preparing for today's meeting of BBC reps to talk about the pay claim for this year and getting ready for Saturday's Jobs Summit which has had to move to a bigger venue given the level of interest.
Wednesday, January 14, 2009
Wasted opportunities for peace...
Spent Saturday marching for peace in Gaza – neither Hamas nor Zionism but international socialism – and spent a mere 9 hours on Monday stuck in an airless cell (ok, it was ACAS but it felt like that..) negotiating – and I use the term in its loosest sense – with Reed Business Information management.
ACAS was all pretty fruitless. Whilst local union reps had spent hours consulting with members and coming up with a number of innovative proposals to break a long-running deadlock management didn’t even all manage to turn up, let along with any ideas. They spent half their time on the phone getting instructions. The instruction appears to have been – no!
So nothing achieved and we race headlong towards a ballot and possible tribunal cases. What a wasted opportunity.
Tuesday I met with Gerry Morrissey, Bectu’s General Secretary at the BBC, had a meeting with one of our BBC secondees, Keith Murray, with Deputy General Secretary Michelle Stanistreet and Campaigns head Stephen Pearse to put final plans in place for the NUJ’s Jobs Summit, and then went to Parliament to meet with the NUJ’s Parliamentary Group. We discussed the crisis facing local newspapers, the refusal of the New Statesman to recognise the union despite us representing 15 out of 16 editorial staff, an ongoing dispute at the BBC World Service, Lord Carter’s Digital Britain review, the Israeli ban on foreign journalists entering Gaza and agreed a number of letters, Parliamentary Questions, Early Day Motions on other activity over the coming weeks.
Then back home to try and catch up on phone calls and emails..sorry if I missed yours!
ACAS was all pretty fruitless. Whilst local union reps had spent hours consulting with members and coming up with a number of innovative proposals to break a long-running deadlock management didn’t even all manage to turn up, let along with any ideas. They spent half their time on the phone getting instructions. The instruction appears to have been – no!
So nothing achieved and we race headlong towards a ballot and possible tribunal cases. What a wasted opportunity.
Tuesday I met with Gerry Morrissey, Bectu’s General Secretary at the BBC, had a meeting with one of our BBC secondees, Keith Murray, with Deputy General Secretary Michelle Stanistreet and Campaigns head Stephen Pearse to put final plans in place for the NUJ’s Jobs Summit, and then went to Parliament to meet with the NUJ’s Parliamentary Group. We discussed the crisis facing local newspapers, the refusal of the New Statesman to recognise the union despite us representing 15 out of 16 editorial staff, an ongoing dispute at the BBC World Service, Lord Carter’s Digital Britain review, the Israeli ban on foreign journalists entering Gaza and agreed a number of letters, Parliamentary Questions, Early Day Motions on other activity over the coming weeks.
Then back home to try and catch up on phone calls and emails..sorry if I missed yours!
Thursday, January 08, 2009
out of the FRYing pan...(and other attempts at a cheap pun)
Yesterday I was accused of taking a cheap shot at Tim Bowdler. It's not him personally - I always found him to be straightforward and likable as a person - it's the fact he received a performance related bonus last year of £516,000 when the share price dived, the company debts became a millstone around their neck and almost 100 editorial jobs have been cut - and that he got a £172,000 uplift in his pension, giving him a transfer value on it of £1.3m whilst many of our members fear for their futures and will not be able to walk straight in to other jobs at PA or elsewhere.
Of course he's not alone - you can draw out similar figures for Sly Bailey, Paul Davidson and others. But his comments put him in the line of fire that day. I'm sure I'll be equally as cheap about others shortly.
And so to his successor, John Fry who visited Leeds yesterday on the same day 100 journalists walked out on a protest and won support from local politicians for the campaign to oppose cuts there - including possible compulsory redundancies amongst photographers.
Discussions with local management have bought more time - and hopefully some movement on those jobs.
That wasn't the only movement over the last 24 hours. In Darlington, following our industrial action on Monday, an agreement has been reached to bring forward pay talks and to reinstate pay stopped as a result of the action. It's the first sign of a thaw in the pay freezes and comes at a time when chapels across arrange of groups are considering action over pay.
Last night the Scottish Parliament also hit out at job cuts amongst journalists - and the particularly pernicious way Newsquest in Glasgow have gone about the process. Once again today in an editorial comment the Herald management try to blame it all on a few trade union militants - then how come 90%-plus voted for action in a secret postal ballot. Liars!
As well as trying to co-ordinate our responses to each set of cuts I've also been trying to do the rest of my work! I had a meeting yesterday to discuss the dispute at Reed Business Information which goes to ACAS on Monday, met with campaigners from War on Want about a range of international issues where we have joint concerns, met Chapel Officers from one of the national newspapers currently negotiating pay and had a meeting with BBC management over a long-running individual case (and hopefully have secured a process for resolving it).
This morning I had a telephone conference with members of the union's copyright committee to discuss how best to bolster our campaigning work on copyright, wrote to our sister union Unite about our work in the publishing industry and did a radio interview with Heart about the cuts announced earlier at the Gazette in north Essex.
Now for some lunch...
Of course he's not alone - you can draw out similar figures for Sly Bailey, Paul Davidson and others. But his comments put him in the line of fire that day. I'm sure I'll be equally as cheap about others shortly.
And so to his successor, John Fry who visited Leeds yesterday on the same day 100 journalists walked out on a protest and won support from local politicians for the campaign to oppose cuts there - including possible compulsory redundancies amongst photographers.
Discussions with local management have bought more time - and hopefully some movement on those jobs.
That wasn't the only movement over the last 24 hours. In Darlington, following our industrial action on Monday, an agreement has been reached to bring forward pay talks and to reinstate pay stopped as a result of the action. It's the first sign of a thaw in the pay freezes and comes at a time when chapels across arrange of groups are considering action over pay.
Last night the Scottish Parliament also hit out at job cuts amongst journalists - and the particularly pernicious way Newsquest in Glasgow have gone about the process. Once again today in an editorial comment the Herald management try to blame it all on a few trade union militants - then how come 90%-plus voted for action in a secret postal ballot. Liars!
As well as trying to co-ordinate our responses to each set of cuts I've also been trying to do the rest of my work! I had a meeting yesterday to discuss the dispute at Reed Business Information which goes to ACAS on Monday, met with campaigners from War on Want about a range of international issues where we have joint concerns, met Chapel Officers from one of the national newspapers currently negotiating pay and had a meeting with BBC management over a long-running individual case (and hopefully have secured a process for resolving it).
This morning I had a telephone conference with members of the union's copyright committee to discuss how best to bolster our campaigning work on copyright, wrote to our sister union Unite about our work in the publishing industry and did a radio interview with Heart about the cuts announced earlier at the Gazette in north Essex.
Now for some lunch...
Tuesday, January 06, 2009
Happy new year?
Happy new year to you all - I'd wish you happiness and prosperity but with high street stores closing at an alarming rate and media companies rushing to axe yet more jobs it appears it could be a rocky 12 months for all those of us. Still it was nice to see former Johnston Press boss Tim Bowdler driving off in his flash car and admitting to mistakes in an ">article in the Sunday Times - at least he'll be alright even if loads of his journalists face a miserable year having been sacked or facing redundancy.
It's also been a miserable start to the year in Gaza - I joined protests during the holiday season in London against the attacks and spoke out against the Israeli ban on foreign journalists entering Gaza at the massive demonstration in London last Saturday. I'll be attending this Saturday's demo too.
Whilst much around us seems miserable the new year has also heralded a new resistance to the cuts in the media industry. Members at the Northern Echo have taken action, members at York have voted for action, protests are planned in Leeds and we've had a flood of people registering for the union's Jobs Summit as we co-ordinate our campaigns against the cuts.
We also received the welcome news of Colin Freeman's release. Our Deputy General Secretary Michelle Stanistreet had been liaising with the Somali journalists union who provided some excellent information and with Telegraph management over the kidnap. We shouldn't forget the Somali journalists who such dangers day in and day out.
Today I've also met with pensions campaigners, had a meeting with Jim Boumelha, President of the International Federation of Journalists covering issues in Somalia, Zimbabwe, our work with members in news agencies in Europe, protection of sources, impunity and a range of other issues.
I also met with photographers pursuing an FOI claim for information about police surveillance of journalists and decided on the next steps in their cases.
I've also been liaising with chapel reps at newspapers in Northern Ireland where attempts to centralise production and cut wages are being resisted.
All in all it's back to business as usual! It's like we've never been away...
It's also been a miserable start to the year in Gaza - I joined protests during the holiday season in London against the attacks and spoke out against the Israeli ban on foreign journalists entering Gaza at the massive demonstration in London last Saturday. I'll be attending this Saturday's demo too.
Whilst much around us seems miserable the new year has also heralded a new resistance to the cuts in the media industry. Members at the Northern Echo have taken action, members at York have voted for action, protests are planned in Leeds and we've had a flood of people registering for the union's Jobs Summit as we co-ordinate our campaigns against the cuts.
We also received the welcome news of Colin Freeman's release. Our Deputy General Secretary Michelle Stanistreet had been liaising with the Somali journalists union who provided some excellent information and with Telegraph management over the kidnap. We shouldn't forget the Somali journalists who such dangers day in and day out.
Today I've also met with pensions campaigners, had a meeting with Jim Boumelha, President of the International Federation of Journalists covering issues in Somalia, Zimbabwe, our work with members in news agencies in Europe, protection of sources, impunity and a range of other issues.
I also met with photographers pursuing an FOI claim for information about police surveillance of journalists and decided on the next steps in their cases.
I've also been liaising with chapel reps at newspapers in Northern Ireland where attempts to centralise production and cut wages are being resisted.
All in all it's back to business as usual! It's like we've never been away...
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