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Dublin dispute
Veteran industrial correspondent Barrie Clement has been looking at some of the recent achievements of the NUJ
If it wasn’t for the union.. N
o-one can miss the gloom and depression in our trade. Local and regional newspapers are merging or closing, people are being thrown out of work and many of those lucky enough to remain employed are on rock bottom pay. The News International scandal continues to cast a long, dark shadow. Faced with all this, there seems little the union can do to defend its members. Well actually, that’s not true. There’s no doubt things would be a hell of a lot worse for journalists without the NUJ. Without the union there would be far more compulsory redundancies, the sackings would be forced through on minimum legal terms, and arguably even more titles would have closed. Meanwhile the NUJ persuaded Lord Leveson that it was entitled to ‘core participant status’ at his inquiry, so the voices of good, honest journalists were heard. And, oh yes, for the first time in 25 years there’s now a nascent NUJ chapel at 10 | theJournalist
Murdoch’s notoriously anti-union News International. Perhaps the key industrial arena at the moment, however, is the local and regional newspaper industry. It’s at the sharp end of the fight for survival. Deputy general secretary Barry Fitzpatrick points out that much of the work of the union is carried on below the radar. The NUJ is negotiating an increasing number of ‘compromise agreements’ where individuals, who are often being forced out of a job, receive substantial payouts negotiated by reps or officials. Overwhelmingly these deals are confidential and therefore unpublicised. In one such case the union won £120,000 for a female journalist who was the subject of vile, sexist bullying at the hands of the kind of sociopath some Fleet Street proprietors – even at the posh end of the market – promote to positions of power. I wish we could name names (but we know who they are!). Assistant legal officer Natasha Morris says that last year the union won nearly £1.7million for individuals through compromise agreements. Include figures for cases settled through conciliation service ACAS, or occasionally without even a compromise agreement, and the NUJ has won substantially more than the £1.7 million figure, although the government is set to change the law in an attempt to undermine the union’s ability to protect its members. Litigation – or the threat of it – also produces results. Scottish organiser Paul Holleran points to legal action taken against Newsquest (Herald & Evening Times) which resulted in a major victory for the NUJ after the company forced out five members through compulsory redundancy. A deal reached weeks before a tribunal produced settlements in the region of £125,000 for the members on top of their statutory redundancy pay.