Misleading
Sir: Among several misleading impressions conveyed in Michael Cockerell's article about The Times in your issue of 9 December, three call for immediate correction.
Mr Cockerell suggests management insists that: ... half the present NGA jobs must go and the new equipment must be operated directly by journalists and telephone girls in the classified ad. department.'
This is a very misleading statement of our intentions. First it has always been our intention that the great majority of all setting would continue to be handled by the NGA. We will always maintain a large composing room staffed by NGA members. Secondly, half is an exaggeration. The ultimate number of jobs is a matter for negotiation, not an arbitrary decision by management. Thirdly, the new technology will be phased in slowly over the next three years, so there is no question of a sudden influx of journalists or telephone girls operating this equipment. Fourthly, as we have given an undertaking of no compulsory redundancy, nobody need go, and only those who wish to will do so, on very generous terms.
Mr Cockerell reports the view of Mr Wade, General Secretary of the NGA, that agreement of Times management's proposals would lead to his members elsewhere in Fleet Street being quickly 'pounced on' by their own managements. If he means by this that every other management in Fleet Street is ready to introduce new technology he is simply wrong. Whatever their intentions may be, it would take years before there could be any further introduction of new technology in Fleet Street. The preliminary work for such further introduction has yet to begin. And if he means that the introduction of new technology throughout Fleet Street will be bad for all his members, I must repeat that it is only the introduction of new technology which can prevent his members from being out of a job in the foreseeable future as the Royal Commission emphasised.
Last, and far from important, is the statement that at the press conference on 30 November I wore make-up. This is simply not true. I might add that nothing I have said or written on this whole subject has ever needed, or been given, cosmetic embellishment.
M.J. Hussey Managing Director and Chief Executive Times Newspapers Ltd, London W.C.1.
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