A relatively successful evening's schmoozing and lobbying at the TUC's annual reception for Parliamentarians.
First target was Culture Secretary Ben Bradshaw to secure a meeting with him about Digital Britain and its implications for media workers. He's the first to arrive and I'm first in there. Job done.
Follow that up with a chat with John McDonnell about arranging a lobby of Parliament over top-slicing and then an agree with Tribune editor Chris McLaughlin to pen something about it for a forthcoming issue. Had a chat with TUC Deputy General Secretary Frances O'Grady about the work of the Panel on Fair Access to the Professions which is looking at a number of issues, including, thanks to the lobbying of ourselves and BECTU, the issue of the abuse of work experience. Frances sits on the panel for the TUC and has been instrumental in getting NUJ and other unions concerns on the agenda. The report is expected shortly and whilst it is unlikely to offer a panacea I am hopeful it will be another tool in trying to halt the shameful abuse of those wanting to break in to journalism and break down some of the barriers students from poorer backgrounds face in getting in to our increasingly privileged profession.
Catch up with NUJ members covering the event, like Kevin Maguire from The Mirror, communications and press officers from the CWU, Unite and others before Gordon and Sarah grace us with their presence and the PM says a few words while a few bemused tourists peer at him through the windows of Church House.
Earlier in the evening I'd been with campaigners from Colombia at a reception at Lancaster House where the new Minister Chris Bryant was due to speak. He hadn't by the time I left for the TUC event but I can report that the canapes were far fancier. But one question bugged me. It was an event about Latin America and all the serving staff were Latin American. Coincidence or cheap labour or tasteless gimmick? Answers on a postcard to.....
Today I've meetings on union recruitment followed by meetings of the National Joint Council (NJC) at the BBC with the Trust followed by a briefing on the state of play with BBC pensions.
Wednesday, July 08, 2009
Monday, July 06, 2009
Digital Britain dominates workload
From meetings with BBC Director General Mark Thompson to discuss Digital Britain and the threat of top-slicing to protesting outside the Gambian High Commission over the arrest and trial of 7 journalists it was a hectic week last week - hence the late catch up on the blog.
The week kicked off with a meeting with the General Secretaries of Equity, Musicians Union and Bectu to discuss our campaigning on Digital Britain before a series of meetings with staff at the
union's HQ and an hour to draft motions for the NEC to table to the next conference. On Tuesday we had the NUJ Parliamentary Group and again Digital Britain took centre stage but we also discussed how MPs can back up the union's Freelance Month activities and whether the Iraq War Inquiry announced by Gordon Brown will have a remit to consider the killing of journalists - particularly Terry Lloyd. We also touched on press freedom issues in Gambia and Qatar. In the evening I met with around 20 Labour MPs and raised the issue of the killing of journalists and trade unionists in Colombia.
Wednesday I met with the TUC and Amnesty International to plan the activities in support of 7 journalists jailed in Gambia. I also wrote to Paul Davidson the Chief Executive of Newsquest about further threatened redundancies in the group. Thursday was spent largely at the BBC with meetings with the new director of BBC People and Director General Mark Thompson. Friday morning I chaired the Federation of Entertainment Unions when we discussed BBC and ITV activities as well as training and equality issues across the sector. From there I went to the Gambian High Commission to join the protest and hand in a letter before racing to ULU to speak in a media workshop at Marxism 2009 before heading back to catch up with emails.
The week kicked off with a meeting with the General Secretaries of Equity, Musicians Union and Bectu to discuss our campaigning on Digital Britain before a series of meetings with staff at the
union's HQ and an hour to draft motions for the NEC to table to the next conference. On Tuesday we had the NUJ Parliamentary Group and again Digital Britain took centre stage but we also discussed how MPs can back up the union's Freelance Month activities and whether the Iraq War Inquiry announced by Gordon Brown will have a remit to consider the killing of journalists - particularly Terry Lloyd. We also touched on press freedom issues in Gambia and Qatar. In the evening I met with around 20 Labour MPs and raised the issue of the killing of journalists and trade unionists in Colombia.
Wednesday I met with the TUC and Amnesty International to plan the activities in support of 7 journalists jailed in Gambia. I also wrote to Paul Davidson the Chief Executive of Newsquest about further threatened redundancies in the group. Thursday was spent largely at the BBC with meetings with the new director of BBC People and Director General Mark Thompson. Friday morning I chaired the Federation of Entertainment Unions when we discussed BBC and ITV activities as well as training and equality issues across the sector. From there I went to the Gambian High Commission to join the protest and hand in a letter before racing to ULU to speak in a media workshop at Marxism 2009 before heading back to catch up with emails.
Wednesday, June 24, 2009
3rd is the new first
Winning would be showing off (someone tell Unite) and coming last would be embarrassing (someone tell the TSSA) so a creditable 3rd place was the perfect outcome for the NUJ team at last night's inaugral Justice for Colombia quiz night.
Held at the TUC with Brendan Barber as quiz master the NUJ line-up of Michelle Stanistreet, Roy Mincoff, Sue Harris, Miles Barter, Richard Simcox, Stephen Pearse and me proved we knew a lot about Colombia, a fair amount about food and drink, a slightly poor amount about sport and politics and bugger all about trade unions. Oh well.
Before heading off to the TUC I was at meetings with Unite discussing joint activity at Trinity Mirror and other newspaper companies and discussing issues across the publishing sector. This morning I'm at BBC meetings and in discussions with Bectu. I'm glad to see Mark Thompson has finally come out strongly against top slicing. Yesterday we set about planning the next few months of campaigning around the issue.
The final tweaks have also been made to the NUJ's 2009/10 budget which I present to Finance Committee tomorrow.
Held at the TUC with Brendan Barber as quiz master the NUJ line-up of Michelle Stanistreet, Roy Mincoff, Sue Harris, Miles Barter, Richard Simcox, Stephen Pearse and me proved we knew a lot about Colombia, a fair amount about food and drink, a slightly poor amount about sport and politics and bugger all about trade unions. Oh well.
Before heading off to the TUC I was at meetings with Unite discussing joint activity at Trinity Mirror and other newspaper companies and discussing issues across the publishing sector. This morning I'm at BBC meetings and in discussions with Bectu. I'm glad to see Mark Thompson has finally come out strongly against top slicing. Yesterday we set about planning the next few months of campaigning around the issue.
The final tweaks have also been made to the NUJ's 2009/10 budget which I present to Finance Committee tomorrow.
Tuesday, June 23, 2009
There is no alternative? Oh yes there is...
Started the week doing an interview with Al Jazeera about the implications for journalism of Suzanne Breen's excellent victory before heading off to chair a Federation of Entertainment Unions event on funding public service broadcasting. Professor Patrick Barwise made an excellent speech setting out the case for industry levies as an alternative to government plans for top slicing. He was quoted in Polly Toynbee's article on Saturday too which took up the argument.
In his comments Patrick said: "once one starts looking at the numbers, it's clear industry levies ought to be a large part of the answer...if the net is spread widely, even a very small revenue levy can generate enough to fill the PSB funding gap. ..there will be fierce debates about the right combination of levies, spending priorities, market distortion and state aid, accountability and so on. But don't let anyone suggest that a levy is inherently difficult or impractical...only five out of 27 countries in the EU don't have a levy on the sales of new recording equipment".
There were also excellent contributions from John Smith the General Secretary of the Musicians' Union and Luke Crawley, Assistant General Secretary of Bectu.
The NUJ and Bectu commissioned a report from IPPR earlier this year about levies. A copy can be downloaded here.
In his comments Patrick said: "once one starts looking at the numbers, it's clear industry levies ought to be a large part of the answer...if the net is spread widely, even a very small revenue levy can generate enough to fill the PSB funding gap. ..there will be fierce debates about the right combination of levies, spending priorities, market distortion and state aid, accountability and so on. But don't let anyone suggest that a levy is inherently difficult or impractical...only five out of 27 countries in the EU don't have a levy on the sales of new recording equipment".
There were also excellent contributions from John Smith the General Secretary of the Musicians' Union and Luke Crawley, Assistant General Secretary of Bectu.
The NUJ and Bectu commissioned a report from IPPR earlier this year about levies. A copy can be downloaded here.
Thursday, June 18, 2009
Landmark victory for media freedom
Fantastic - Suzanne Breen has won - and convincingly. The judgement was as good as it could have been. Congratulations to Suzanne.
Here's some of the early media coverage, including Suzanne's comments outside the court and here's what our Irish Secretary Seamus Dooley had to say.
What with that and the comments of Lord Carlisle it's been quite a day.
Oh and we're under fire from the BNP - as fascists. ha, ha, ha.... The worrying thing is that so are other media and some others are so worried by the abuse they are getting they may decide not to run any more stories. That way the BNP would win. Tonight's meeting is precisely to help us organise against this kind of intimidation.
Here's some of the early media coverage, including Suzanne's comments outside the court and here's what our Irish Secretary Seamus Dooley had to say.
What with that and the comments of Lord Carlisle it's been quite a day.
Oh and we're under fire from the BNP - as fascists. ha, ha, ha.... The worrying thing is that so are other media and some others are so worried by the abuse they are getting they may decide not to run any more stories. That way the BNP would win. Tonight's meeting is precisely to help us organise against this kind of intimidation.
High noon on judgement day
At midday today a court in Belfast could effectively pass what amounts to "a death sentence" on a journalist. Of course, Suzanne Breen may be given a choice - she can go to jail instead. But there is a chink of light. Thanks to the fabulous campaign she and her paper and the union have run she has massive support for the principle of protection of sources and the court could uphold that principle. Whatever the outcome today the union will support Suzanne to the hilt. She is protecting a fundamental principle of journalism. If she is forced to hand over her notes and records not only will she be placed in danger but investigative journalism will be dealt a massive blow. Good luck Suzanne.
In the event that the judgement goes against her not just the union but the whole of the media must react. It is all our rights under attack.
While the court case is going on we'll be holed up in the union's Policy Committee meeting covering our Parliamentary work, our TUC work and our international work. With the release of Digital Britain there's much to discuss. Our campaigning against top-slicing needs to be stepped up with the news that 3.5% of the BBC licence fee is to be 'shared'. So they are still planning to rob Peter to pay Paul and give a massive public subsidy to commercial organisations whilst asking little in return. The report is a failure in that it fails to identify new money to help public service broadcasting or other media - it just plans to share out the same pot even thinner putting more pressure on quality.
I met the new Culture Secretary (and NUJ member!) Ben Bradshaw last night at the All Party Parliamentary Media Group reception at Channel 4 and had a chance to urge a rethink and push the alternative he says he is interested in finding. It's called levies. And having been told by all and sundry they are difficult to deliver politically we then get a levy on the public to pay for part of the broadband roll-out. Oh the hypocrisy! Anyone interested in hearing the case for levies should come along on Monday to an event organised by the Federation of Entertainment Unions.
It's time to join the battle. It may be our last chance to save the licence fee from a future rapacious government. I also had a good chat with Don Foster MP and Austin Mitchell about Digital Britain. They have both made excellent interventions standing up for journalism in the current debate.
Apart from hob-nobbing with the media glitterati at Channel 4, I've moved office (to make room for the GFTU who move in next month), had a number of internal staff meetings and attended meetings of the TUC Executive and the unattractively named Organisation and Representation Task Group but which is actually the key cross-unions committee at the TUC dealing with employment rights issues and union recruitment. We had an interesting discussion about plans to try to reverse the decline in union membership which is particularly acute because of the recession. The pattern is uneven with some unions gaining members whilst others have suffered heavy losses. We're doing not too badly given the huge job losses there have been in our industry. Recruitment remains high but it is not keeping up with the numbers leaving the industry at the moment. Over the next few months our attention will be on breaking in to new areas and building the number of union reps we have to help build the effectiveness of the union in more workplaces.
In the event that the judgement goes against her not just the union but the whole of the media must react. It is all our rights under attack.
While the court case is going on we'll be holed up in the union's Policy Committee meeting covering our Parliamentary work, our TUC work and our international work. With the release of Digital Britain there's much to discuss. Our campaigning against top-slicing needs to be stepped up with the news that 3.5% of the BBC licence fee is to be 'shared'. So they are still planning to rob Peter to pay Paul and give a massive public subsidy to commercial organisations whilst asking little in return. The report is a failure in that it fails to identify new money to help public service broadcasting or other media - it just plans to share out the same pot even thinner putting more pressure on quality.
I met the new Culture Secretary (and NUJ member!) Ben Bradshaw last night at the All Party Parliamentary Media Group reception at Channel 4 and had a chance to urge a rethink and push the alternative he says he is interested in finding. It's called levies. And having been told by all and sundry they are difficult to deliver politically we then get a levy on the public to pay for part of the broadband roll-out. Oh the hypocrisy! Anyone interested in hearing the case for levies should come along on Monday to an event organised by the Federation of Entertainment Unions.
It's time to join the battle. It may be our last chance to save the licence fee from a future rapacious government. I also had a good chat with Don Foster MP and Austin Mitchell about Digital Britain. They have both made excellent interventions standing up for journalism in the current debate.
Apart from hob-nobbing with the media glitterati at Channel 4, I've moved office (to make room for the GFTU who move in next month), had a number of internal staff meetings and attended meetings of the TUC Executive and the unattractively named Organisation and Representation Task Group but which is actually the key cross-unions committee at the TUC dealing with employment rights issues and union recruitment. We had an interesting discussion about plans to try to reverse the decline in union membership which is particularly acute because of the recession. The pattern is uneven with some unions gaining members whilst others have suffered heavy losses. We're doing not too badly given the huge job losses there have been in our industry. Recruitment remains high but it is not keeping up with the numbers leaving the industry at the moment. Over the next few months our attention will be on breaking in to new areas and building the number of union reps we have to help build the effectiveness of the union in more workplaces.
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