The 2004 NUJ Annual Delegate Meeting was lively and high-profile – particularly in the wake of the Hutton report and the background of rationalisation of the regional TV companies and campaigns to get better pay and conditions in the regional press.
The branch sent two delegates, Adrian Colley and myself. We attended all the sessions of what has now become a four-day conference. We were impressed by the professionalism of the NUJ conference team. Have filled in questionnaire recommending minor changes to the way conference is organised.
We were surprised at the lack of newspaper journalists, especially reporters from the national and provincial press. The union is now very much a multi-media union with delegates representing PR companies, websites, their own commercial/journalism businesses, and union associated media outlets. As always there was a strong Irish contingent.
I found the sector conference on newspapers on Thursday evening very valuable. It was good to hear there is strong union representation at The Independent, Daily Telegraph and Daily Express. On all these papers chapels have managed to get decent wage rises and on The Independent the rise has been around 7%, taking the average pay of journalists on the paper to more than £30,000. The chapel at the Express was able to deal with the problems of the blatantly racist editorial policy towards immigrants, resulting in the toning down of the paper's right-wing stance towards refugees and gypsies.
On the provincial side there was concern expressed at the way Newsquest under instruction of parent company Gannet was keeping down wages and cutting back publications in the Surrey area, which for me is too close to home. Several papers in the Surrey Comet circulation area have been merged and dumped and some have become freesheets.
The NUJ is strong in the Newsquest offices in Surrey and they have managed to push up wage rates. Union reps did not know of anyone on less than £15,000, including trainees. The conference passed a resolution saying the minimum pay for all journalists should be £15,000 in the regions and £17,000 in London. Average wage increases throughout Newsquest group were between 1.5% and 3%. The campaign to highlight low pay in the company would continue. Newsquest is currently operating on a 25% profit margin while the profits made by Gannet are increasing, hence they can afford to bid for the Daily Telegraph.
The branch put forward two motions. One on Zimbabwe calling for the Government to do more to ensure the press in Zimbabwe operates freely from restrictive laws. I made speech linking the way The Argus had been able to write freely about the activities of Nicholas van Hoogstraten in Sussex and that the main newspaper in Zimbabwe, the Daily News, had been unable to do likewise. Our motion sparked a good debate. It was unanimously approved and the NUJ agreed to give tangible, financial and practical support to the Daily News. My speech based on information given by our NEC representative, Fraser Addecott and our successful motion, was reported in Press Gazette.
Our other motion, calling for the redesign of The Journalist, sparked one of the liveliest debates of the conference. I said there was too much use made of colour in the paper and the blue on green text as well as orange on red made it difficult to read. I said it was not a black and white issue and there were too many pictures of Jeremy Dear. NUJ editor Tim Gopsill was forced to defend and said The Journalist advisory committee was always grateful for suggestions as to how The Journalist could be improved. Other speakers also pointed out that if people wanted to criticise the magazine (as has happened regularly at Brighton and Mid-Sussex branch meetings), then they should consider serving on the advisory committee, which meets four times a year, as there are vacancies on the committee.
It was clear our motion would not be approved after one speaker said he could see no point in the NEC setting up a committee to do the same job as the advisory committee. Tim Gopsill invited Brighton and Mid-Sussex to nominate someone for the advisory committee as there were vacancies.
I withdrew the motion to applause, saying we had sparked a positive discussion on the matter. The debate led to a parody of my speech at the end-of-conference revue with Tim Gopsill arriving on stage on all fours as a 'lapdog'. He was told The Journalist was going to be edited by The Black and White Minstrels from Brighton. The 'lapdog' was finally sent off-stage with the instructions 'To go and find some more photographs of Jeremy Dear'.
Other decisions which directly affected our branch included more promotion of the training programmes which the NUJ has set up, rejection of an NUJ campaign against the Euro, outlawing of moonlighting while a staff journalist (although one delegate said this would be completely ignored by ambitious journalists), status quo on people who receive half their income from journalistic activities being allowed to join.
There was also a motion agreed that chapels should work with management to express best practice regarding work experience on papers to end exploitation of free labour. A motion to fight job losses in regional TV was also approved.
A motion calling for the setting up of a New Media Industrial Council was agreed and another one calling for the Government to introduce a statutory 35-hour week with no loss of pay was also approved. There was also a call for the NUJ to enter into discussions about media facilities at new sports stadiums. As Brighton may get two new sports stadiums (hopefully not at Falmer) in the next few years we need to bear this in mind.
Next year's conference will be at Scarborough 7-10 April, 2005. Close of motions 1 November, close of amendments and delegate registration 7 February.
by Rowan Dore
