29.01.2009

Anita's Star fails to shine

Lawrence Parker examines current problems at the Morning Star and its CPB satellite

It was quite clear that when Anita Halpin, chair of the Communist Party of Britain and treasurer of the National Union of Journalists, came into £20.5 million in late 2006 it meant trouble for the CPB. We predicted (to howls of derision from some CPB loyalists) that this development would amplify latent tensions and divisions.¹

However, the corrosive effects of Halpin’s windfall, while present inside the CPB, have manifested themselves more dramatically inside the ‘party’s’ parent organisation, the Morning Star, where NUJ journalists are holding a strike ballot after rejecting an offer of a 3% pay increase plus a lump sum of 3% on all journalists’ salaries. The situation has been exacerbated, according to the NUJ members, by the dragging out of negotiations and the role of Halpin’s ‘anonymous’ consortium. While this is putting up £500,000 for the paper’s development over three years, it stipulates that this bumper donation should not go towards journalists’ salaries (ie, Halpin’s brothers and sisters in the NUJ).

What lies behind the proposed ballot? Certainly, the current Star management committee does not have an impressive record in terms of workers’ rights. In 2006, at the AGM of the People’s Press Printing Society, which owns the Star, the NUJ chapel put forward the following motion: “This meeting requests the PPPS management committee to consider permitting the NUJ chapel of the Morning Star to send one of its members, chosen in any way that the chapel sees fit, to all meetings of the management committee. This member would have observer status only, with no voting powers.”

This mild proposal was opposed by the management committee for a variety of bureaucratic reasons² and the resolution was heavily defeated in the aggregated vote among 80 or so shareholders who turned up to the four national AGM meetings (mostly composed of ageing CPB sympathisers). James Eagle, who moved the motion at the time, pointed out the irony that for a cost of £20,000 (a maximum shareholding), the RMT and FBU unions could get unelected trade union members onto the management committee, yet the committee wanted to debar its own journalists. Workers’ rights at the Star? No thanks, comrade.

It was also at this AGM that the NUJ chapel proposed another resolution arguing that the paper should look to set a target minimum wage per annum of £26,000 for its journalists.³ This was again heavily defeated in the aggregated votes, although there was a small majority in favour in the London leg. The management committee’s line was that this simply could not be afforded.

So this is a dispute that has been brewing for a while, the issue over pay being compounded by the inability of the management committee to offer its workers any meaningful participation in the strategic running of the paper. Added to this rather explosive mix was the appearance of Anita Halpin’s money and her ‘consortium’ offering money to the Star in a manner that specifically rejected bumping up any of the existing journalists’ wages.

According to John Haylett, the paper’s editor until last month and now its political editor, the donation was ring-fenced to pay for increased print costs and six new members of staff. Because of this, and the fact that Halpin is actually an official of the NUJ, her name is now mud among Star journalists and sub-editors. As Steve Mather, NUJ workplace representative, said, “A newspaper that sees itself as a champion of the trade union movement should not be having industrial relationship problems over pay when it has had the biggest donation in its history.”⁴

However, the status of the donation is still disputed. Editor Bill Benfield (who is a member of the Unite chapel at the Star, which has settled with management over the proposed pay rise) says: “The Morning Star is not in receipt of a half-a-million-pound donation. We haven’t yet seen a penny. Although we are trying to organise to make it happen, that project won’t start for months yet.”⁵ The NUJ claims, however, that the donation has appeared in this year’s PPPS books.⁶

The Socialist Unity website has increasingly been the arena for some bitter personal attacks from both sides of the dispute over the last week or so, with the majority of CPB members appearing to be in alliance with Haylett and Benfield, who have both criticised the motivations of the NUJ chapel. Haylett has been made lead negotiator on the PPPS management side and he has certainly stepped up the invective against NUJ members, marking them out as a kind of ‘enemy within’: “Socialists of any stripe should not be applauding the actions of a group of workers who are putting their own interests before those of our class as a whole.”⁷

For their part, workers at the Star have accused Haylett and the management committee of threatening them with ‘Tory’ anti-union laws. Steve Mather has toned down this rhetoric, although his anger at Haylett and the CPB is apparent: “The journalists at the Morning Star believe that everybody is entitled to their view on the dispute, but we will not accept from any quarter, whether it be from the former editor, CPB members or members of any other party, that we do not have the right to ballot for industrial action and withdraw our labour if we feel it is necessary to ensure we are treated fairly and respectfully in dealing with the paper’s management committee reps over pay negotiations.”⁸ There is some irony in Haylett’s switch from poacher to gamekeeper, given that he was sacked by Mary Rosser in 1998 and led the Star journalists out on strike in support of his reinstatement. Hired as wage slaves, treated as wage slaves, they think and act as wage slaves.

This situation is a by-product of what the Star has become under the control of the PPPS. It makes little sense to claim that the management committee is made up of fat-cat profiteers, but under an ‘independent from party control’ guise, the likes of Haylett have begun to generate a discourse (balance sheets, income streams, revenue, salaries and so on) and practice that mimic those of a capitalist enterprise. It is therefore unsurprising if the workers respond with militant trade unionism.

We would support the Star journalists and sub-editors taking strike action against the PPPS management in the limited sense that we would support any other group of workers. We therefore reject the counter-argument that, as the Star is our “paper of the left”, we should line up with Haylett and the management against the NUJ chapel. The paper is not democratically controlled by the left in any sense. How can it be, when its editorial line is tied to the British road to socialism, the shibboleth of one faction/sect of the left? Yes, there has been a relative ‘opening up’ of the paper towards the sections of the soft left that the CPB feels comfortable with, but this is generally in the direction of diplomacy rather than serious debate and exploring different strategies. The plain truth is that no great principle attaches itself to either side in this dispute.

Some of the management committee’s supporters appear to be consoling themselves with the thought that, while wages and conditions on the Star may be poor, at least they are better than on ‘Trot’ papers such as the Weekly Worker. Well, that is certainly true, given that no-one receives any wages for working on this paper - journalists, production staff or editor. All labour is voluntary and working for it is regarded as a privilege. In a communist collective such as the Weekly Worker, relationships are certainly not those of employer/employee.

It is hard, then, not to feel some sympathy for those CPB activists who are grumbling about the strike ballot and the attitude of the NUJ chapel. After all, they promote and sell the paper on a voluntary basis as part of their freely given labour for the CPB. Why should others moan about pay of around £18,000 a year? This suggests the position of Star journalists is somewhat exposed. So how do they develop a broader support base?

This can only be done by deepening and politicising the strike. The NUJ chapel should renew its drive for representation on the management committee and insist on being present at meetings with Anita Halpin when the future funding of the paper is discussed. The journalists should agitate among PPPS shareholders for the removal of the management committee - although, let us be frank, the ageing and eccentric comrades currently active in PPPS meetings provide fallow ground. Rather the journalists should look to win new shareholders from those parts of the left currently disenfranchised from the Star.

That, however, would mean opening up a debate on the nature of the paper and who it serves, and quickly lead to a bitter struggle with the CPB. It might also mean opening a further debate as to whether a true “paper of the left” would want to enshrine employer/employee relations, as the PPPS has done.

If the Star journalists do not take this course, the likelihood is that they will be very quickly isolated. As the chapel is probably all too aware, large parts of the revolutionary movement are at best antipathetic or at worst actively hostile to the paper, mostly because of the CPB. It is exceedingly unlikely that the trade union bureaucrats who support the Star will want to intervene, in case it queers their pitch with what is a useful, if minor, PR outlet for them. It is clear also that relations with the management committee are likely to become untenable, given the vitriol that has begun to appear from both sides.

If the NUJ chapel loses, or even if it wins a bigger pay claim, it risks being a derided and untrusted group in an organisation dominated by Anita Halpin’s money - and she is not exactly likely to look benignly on a group of journalists from her own union who have pushed a fair amount of angst in her direction. One can only laugh at Haylett’s ridiculous comment that “neither the Communist Party [sic] nor the PPPS would wish to see the paper’s existence dependent on the whim of any individual”.⁹

Any fool can see that is exactly what is happening to the Star.

Notes

1. See ‘Money for old rope’ Weekly Worker November 23 2006.
2. See ‘No to workers’ representation’ Weekly Worker June 15 2006.
3. Ibid.
4. The Guardian January 22 2009.
5. www.socialistunity.com/?p=3441#comments
6. www.socialistunity.com/?p=3434
7. Ibid.
8. www.socialistunity.com/?p=3480
9. www.socialistunity.com/?p=3441