Flood waters rise...

Came in this morning to the news we'd been flooded after a water cooler exploded over night and so electricity and phones were out of order - ended up having to send most staff home with the building in darkness and no access to emails, computers etc.. The worst part was no coffee.


Luckily there was coffee at the Publishing Skills Council meeting - the first one I've been to since the convoluted process to enable the union to be represented whilst pretending it is not (I'm called the employee rep or something like that). The PSC is part of Skillset, the sector skills council and it was an interesting meeting beginning to get to grips with the big discussion about the skills needs of those entering the publishing industry today at a period of such massive transformation. There's a range of views around the table but a common understanding that good vocational training and clear advice about training and careers opportunities is important.


Yesterday I spent nearly 4 hours representing a member in a disciplinary hearing before heading to my own union branch - Central London. In the morning I attended the TUC Executive which adopted a good position paper on Digital Britain and in particular in opposition to top-slicing and in favour of the NUJ/BECTU position on levies.


Monday I had been at a meeting of the BBC World Service newsroom chapel discussing some of the ideas for campaigning around top slicing and the likely funding cuts World Service may experience when its Grant in Aid is reviewed as part of government spending plans.


It is clearly going to be a very difficult time for the BBC - we had briefings at the end of last week on the situation facing the pension fund and with Ben Bradshaw on the war path jobs and programmes are going to be under threat. We understand all too well why people want to criticise BBC management - we do it every day but we also understand why many of the media have an interest in attacking the BBC's funding and it is important we distinguish between addressing poor management and action which will weaken the BBC's public service broadcasting. At the moment the cuts include environment and economics correspondents and journalists covering world news and arts. Where's the 'tackling waste' in that.

Friday was the union's National Executive Council - 9 hours of debate and discussion on topics covering job cuts across the industry, union finances, membership, motions for annual conference, policy issues as well as topics like the News of the World hacking revelations and the implications of Digital Britain.

The NEC also gave its full backing to all those resisting job cuts at profitable media companies and those defending quality in their workplaces. Authority for action was given at newspapers in Middelsborough, Newcastle, Birmingham, at Penguin, at Signal Radio in Stoke whilst the NEC welcomed the campaigning in Scotland which had resulted in MSPs criticising the impact of cuts in newspapers.

The FCO has better canapes than the TUC

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.

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.

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.

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.