WeeklyWorker

27.07.2011

Still on outside

Unions remain banned by Rupert Murdoch. Julia Owlerton reports on the NUJ's attempt to get back into News International and the inadequacy of the union left

In 1986 Rupert Murdoch moved his papers from Fleet Street to Wapping and in the process sacked more than 5,000 production and clerical workers, eliminating the powerful print unions in the process. But the National Union of Journalists was banished from Wapping as well - Murdoch set up his own company ‘union’ under the name of the Human Resources Committee, which later morphed into the News International Staff Association (Nisa).

Every employee of News International automatically becomes a member of Nisa and actively has to opt out - leading to almost 100% membership levels. There is no subscription fee, which means that Nisa is dependent on the employer for meeting any costs incurred in the course of its activities. For the first few years, meetings of its executive were “coordinated, attended and minuted by members of New International Human Resources Department” and the company had been “involved in both the provision and funding of training for Nisa officials and representatives”. The membership list is not even made available to Nisa officials, so that “any mailings to the membership have to be undertaken by the employer”.

So reads the report of the certification officer of the Central Arbitration Committee (CAC), who in 2001 ruled that Nisa is clearly not an “independent trade union”.[1]  And yet, under the draconian anti-trade union laws, it is almost impossible for the NUJ to get into Wapping. The obstacles are tremendous: 10% of NI employees have to seek derecognition not just of Nisa - but the entire collective bargaining arrangements in each of the different companies in the NI empire.

Those applying to the CAC must give notice of the approach to the employer and open themselves up to penalisation from their bosses. The request is only deemed permissible if the CAC is persuaded that “a majority of the workers in each unit are likely to support the derecognition”. And even then the workers and employers are still supposed to try to “reach an agreement”.

Failing that, a ballot will be held - but only Murdoch and his ‘union’ will have the right to address the workforce. The workers who initiated the derecognition or the NUJ do not get direct access to the employees. If it ever comes to such a ballot, 40% of those eligible to vote must take part before a majority vote for derecognition of Nisa is considered valid. As a reminder: at the recent elections for the PCS union executive, only 10.8% of the eligible membership took part - and that is nowhere near the worst ever turnout for a union vote.

Nevertheless, getting the union back into News International is regarded as one of the main tasks for the NUJ in the wake of the hacking scandal. It has organised stalls outside Wapping, given out hundreds of leaflets and set up surgeries nearby. The results, I am told, are mixed: there are many new membership applications, but hardly anybody turns out for public meetings.

Apparently some journalists have joined up because they believe it might help them secure a better redundancy package - and who can blame them? So, despite these union recruits, it remains doubtful whether recognition is very near, especially in the current climate of fear. Most former News of the World workers still do not know what will happen to them and if they will get decent jobs at other outlets. NI employees fear that Murdoch might well use the opportunity to ‘streamline’ other titles, too. All in the spirit of ‘cleaning up his own house’, of course.

At the moment, the only time the NUJ can represent a member working for News International is in individual cases - eg, redundancies, grievances and disciplinaries. “Unionised workplaces have a different culture,” writes Donnacha DeLong, new NUJ president. “A well-organised union provides a counterbalance to the power of the editors and proprietors that can limit their excesses. The collective can tackle stress and bullying and prevent people getting desperate.”[2]

However, comrade DeLong is probably a bit over-optimistic when he writes that “the NUJ could have stopped this happening.”  He quotes the NUJ Code of conduct,[3] which in his view would have somehow stopped the News of the World from becoming the rightwing pile of crap that it was.

This is unlikely. After all, the NUJ is allowed to operate at Associated Newspapers (Daily Mail, Mail on Sunday) and Express Newspapers (which publish the Daily Star and the Express) - and look at the bile those papers spew out every day. Though to be fair, the NUJ chapel at the Daily Star famously forced the editors in 2006 to pull an anti-Muslim ‘Daily Fatwa’ page.

Looking for answers in the NUJ’s Code of conduct ignores the tremendous pressure on journalists who work in most bourgeois newspapers, not just the nasty tabloids: in the race for profits and higher circulation, there is constant demand on the writer to deliver exclusives. It is a highly individualised job, with often very little solidarity between colleagues (who are potential rivals in the hunt for the next scoop). Add to that the fact that the newspaper business is very much in decline and you get massive job insecurity. Also, it is extremely questionable whether even the strictest adherence to the NUJ’s Code of conduct would prevent gutter journalism. It is in fact not dramatically different from the Editors’ code of the Press Complaints Commission. It cannot be stressed enough that the PCC, contrary to the powerful image it has in society as a seemingly independent guardian of journalistic standards, is nothing of the sort. It has been set up by Britain’s newspapers themselves and is run by their editors.

While the NUJ talks about obtaining material “by honest, straightforward and open means”, the PCC goes into even more detail and states that “the press must not seek to obtain or publish material acquired by using hidden cameras or clandestine listening devices; or by intercepting private or mobile telephone calls, messages or emails; or by the unauthorised removal of documents or photographs; or by accessing digitally held private information without consent.”

But both codes also allow for exceptions to the rule - even the NUJ thinks it is OK not to be “honest, straightforward and open” when it is in the “public interest”. In such undefined circumstances an NUJ journalist may “intrude into anybody’s private life, grief or distress”.

Needless to say, most publishing companies have broken the Editors’ code plenty of times, but, of course, do not expect any repercussions. This is why the NUJ also wants to replace the PCC with a “serious regulatory body,” writes NUJ general secretary Michelle Stanistreet (my emphasis). It should “provide for serious penalties for media organisations which broke the code, as well as offering a reliable mechanism to deal with complaints from the public.”[4] But surely what is needed is not quasi-governmental censorship, but organisation and militant collective action by workers within the media industry.

At recent NUJ Left meetings, I have come across members of the Socialist Workers Party, the Socialist Party in England and Wales, the Morning Star’s Communist Party of Britain and a number of leftwingers. As in many other unions, the focus has been extremely limited: I was actually told by an SWP member that its main task is to make sure that “the right doesn’t get hold of the union leadership” and so meetings are normally “rather dull”.

Surely, this crisis provides us with an incredible opportunity to grow and put forward radical solutions that go beyond tweaking the NUJ Code of conduct or calling for “more regulation” by the state.

There was a lot of nodding at an NUJ Left meeting when Donnacha DeLong raised the need to abolish the Press Complaints Commission and replace it with “something else” - at the moment, “we are not sure what”. He said he was impressed with the Irish equivalent, the Press Council, which seems “independent of government and independent of the media”.

But even a cursory glance at the council’s website shows how wrong the comrade is.[5] It is made up of members appointed by the government. Its chairman, Dáithí O’Ceallaigh, used to be the Irish ambassador to London, Belfast, the UN and the World Trade Organisation and is now director general of the Institute of International and European Affairs in Dublin.

No democrat, socialist or proponent of free speech ought to put any trust in such a monstrosity.

Notes

  1. ‘Not so Nice for Nisa’, 2001 article by Carolyn Jones of the Institute of Employment Rights: www.powerinaunion.co.uk/news-international-staff-association-murdochs-in-house-union
  2. www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/jul/08/nuj-news-of-the-world
  3. www.nuj.org.uk/print.php?id=174, July 20
  4. Ibid.
  5. www.pressombudsman.ie