WANTED: A JOURNALISTS' UNION
that journalists need less politics and more clout
JOURNALISTS are expert at telling other people how to run their affairs but not so good at looking after their own. In the 1960s and 1970s, riding on the coat tails of the all-powerful print unions, they were in a relatively strong position vis-à-vis man- agement. Today they are much less secure. The Wapping Revolution made more money available for editorial expenditure, and the more successful journalists bene- fited individually, as the system of personal contracts spread. But the days have gone when the only person on a paper who could be sacked was the editor. This has been harshly confirmed by the recession. Managements no longer fear unions. They simply go ahead and take decisions in what they feel are the best interests of the com- pany and its shareholders. The recent restructuring of the Independent, involving the dissolution of its Sunday as a separate paper and many job-losses, was decided regardless of what the staff felt and with only the feeblest of protests. It is the same story in television, where an even more severe decline in advertising is killing many jobs — over 200 at Thames Televi- sion, for instance. At ITN, whose troubles have been compounded by lax manage- ment and overspending on the Gulf war, a massacre of journalists and other workers is impending. At such times, the more vulnerable jour- nalists need a first-class professional asso- ciation or union to exert restraint on management or at least negotiate good redundancy payments. No such body exists. The Institute of Journalists, though sensible, is too small and weak. The National Union of Journalists, still com- paratively large, has become a joke. For many years it has been manipulated by left-wing activists who get themselves elected to its National Executive and use their position to pursue absurd political causes. Union funds have been wasted on backing obscure and hopeless strikes, or have disappeared in a succession of finan- cial scandals. The trouble is that good journalists cannot be bothered to attend union branch meetings or even to vote in elections of officials. The result is that the activists, often employed on fringe publica- tions of the Left, acquire power.
Sometimes a public-spirited individual decides to devote his time to fighting the Left. That happened when Bernard Levin took on the extremists in the Freelance Branch and beat them. But the day came when he decided he had to get on with his own life, and the moment he relaxed his efforts, the faceless sea of militancy closed in again. You cannot permanently keep down gruesome people whose only inter- est and emotional occupation is political intrigue, except by becoming like them and what sensible person wants that?
Occasionally a surge of disgust among ordinary NUJ members acts as a check on the seemingly inexorable process whereby the hard Left is destroying the union. That happened last year when a moderate from the Daily Mirror, Steve Turner, was elected general secretary, in the teeth of left-wing resistance. Almost from the start, efforts were made to render the election nugato- ry. Turner informed the UK Press Gazette last September: 'Senior NUJ officials have told me that the group is determined to prevent me taking office. If that doesn't succeed, they have a fall-back plan to get me sacked as soon as possible.' The pre- diction was amply confirmed. Turner had to fight a series of battles simply to get the terms of his appointment confirmed. He succeeded in doing so, but earlier this month the National Executive, on a 10-9 vote, fired him on the technical charge of failing to carry out union policy. A story is being put about that Turner failed to con- sult the so-called 'right-of-centre' members of the Executive, and that it was they rather than the extremists who voted against him. I find that a suspicious tale. In any case, what does 'right-of-centre' mean in NUJ terms? Turner let it be known that unless he has been reinstated by the middle of this week he intends to sue for wrongful dismissal.
Turner would demand, and most likely get, heavy damages, and this might well have the effect of tipping the union over the edge into bankruptcy. The NUJ has not only mismanaged its finances. It has been losing members, and many more have sim- ply not been paying their dues. As it is, NUJ members on the Daily Mirror have voted to withhold their subscriptions, val- ued at about £35,000 a year, unless Turner gets his job back. Journalists of Mirror Group Newspapers, who constitute the largest single element within the NUJ, might consider going further, leaving the NUJ in a body and setting up a new union, which would be non-political, wholly pro- fessional and devoted entirely to improving pay and conditions in the industry. Such an organisation would, I suspect, attract the bulk of the NUJ's existing members, who are fed up with its endless antics, rows and scandals, and pull in new people from newspapers, magazines, broadcasting and publishing, who remain un-unionised sim- ply because they find no existing institution attractive.
The Mirror people in particular need an efficient union to look after their interests. Neither Cap'n Bob's Maxwell Communica- tions Corporation, nor MGN itself, looks comfortable at present. MGN is above all a tabloid business, and tabloids appear to be in long-term decline. Rupert Murdoch's Sun lost 6.2 per cent of its sales in the last year, his News of the World 4.5 per cent. But Murdoch's tabloids are market-leaders, and they are balanced by his qualities. Of Maxwell's papers, the Daily MirrorlReeord lost 4.8 per cent last year, the Sunday Mir- ror 3.6 per cent and the People 9.7 per cent. MGN shares, recently floated and standing at 125p in May, have fallen to 93p. Last week it emerged that Peter Walker would not, after all, be taking over the chair of Maxwell's MCC, and the Independent's comments as to why provoked a writ and High Court injunction from an infuriated Maxwell. What exactly is going on in his extensive empire is never easy to discover. But it is clear that the most valuable bits are now located in America, and British journalists who are in any way tied to his fortunes — he holds 51 per cent of MGN's share — need all the union protection they can get. There has never been a better time to start a viable alternative to the discredit- ed NUJ, and MGN journalists have a strong motive to get one going.
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