Workers' Liberty

Industrial News Roundup: RMT, NUJ, Unision, Immigration Controls

On Monday November 5 the National Union of Journalists are to hold a day of action — Stand Up for Journalism day — across the UK and Ireland, to highlight cuts in the media.

By Sofie Buckland

Workers at Brixton's Ritzy cinema are taking strike action over management's refusal to raise wages significantly above the minimum wage. Ritzy staff, organised by BECTU, rejected the company's last offer of £5.41, or £5.50 per hour without sales bonus, voting unanimously to strike.

Several high profile and large NUJ branches — ITN, BBC London and Observer — have spearheaded a campaign for ballot over the NUJ’s recent decision to “call for a boycott of Israeli goods”. They believe, of course, that the policy will overturn the decision of the 2007 Annual Delegate Meeting. The sponsors of the ballot call are probably right. Whether a vote against the boycott in such a ballot will be for the right reasons is another matter.

By Cathy Nugent

The National Union of Journalists (NUJ) voted 66 to 54 at its recent annual delegate meeting for a motion brought by the South Yorkshire branch which says, among other things, that the union should call “for a boycott of Israeli goods similar to those boycotts in the struggles against apartheid South Africa led by trade unions, and the TUC to demand sanctions be imposed on Israel by the British government and the United Nations.”

By THE No One Is Illegal campaign

For the first time an alliance of trade union General Secretaries have come together in support of a refugee in detention and under threat of deportation. The refugee is Alphonsus Uche Okafor-Mefor.

Workers at the Daily Star forced their bosses to scrap a planned anti-Muslim tirade when the National Union of Journalists chapel passed a resolution that the page should be pulled and threatened strike action to back it up.

Journalists at South Yorkshire Newspapers, owned by the Edinburgh Johnstone Group, are taking strike action to raise the paltry wages paid to staff on a number of local titles throughout the South Yorkshire region.

Ten thousand NUJ, BECTU and Musicians' Union members in the BBC are due to be balloted on strike action over the Corporation's plans for pay, pensions and job cuts.

Now that the main public sector unions have capitulated on pensions — for the time being, anyway — the capitalist bosses are picking off smaller, weaker groups of workers at their leisure.

UNISON and NUJ members in the Press and Publicity department of Tower Hamlets Council took strike action on Monday 28 November in defence of Eileen Short, who has been threatened with losing her job as a result of restructuring.

Unions at the BBC have warned Director General Mark Thompson that they consider the dispute over the corporations proposed job cuts “still on”.

Industrial action ballot papers have just been sent out to BBC workers.

The ballot, being run in protest at plans for thousands of job cuts and further privatisation of the BBC, covers members of BECTU, NUJ, and Amicus.

Unions at the BBC — BECTU, NUJ and Amicus — are set to begin a ballot for strike action over massive cuts at the corporation.

At the beginning of March the BBC Director General announced 2,900 job losses. He also wants a 15% cut in departmental budgets. This will lead, say the unions, to thousands more job losses. Many more BBC programmes are to be “outsourced”, made by outside companies, whole sections of the BBC will be sold off.

Brighton and Hove Teaching Assistants, Michelin workers, UNISON activists in Walsall, BBC workers against job cuts.

from the National Union of Journalists. The owners of the Guardian - Britain's most liberal newspaper - are attacking the working conditions of their journalists in the northern city of Manchester. Please read on for the full story and how you can help...

By Martin Thomas

The left-wing monthly Red Pepper, and weekly Tribune, have joined forces to promote a "charter for the minority press".


What stung them to action was a decision by W H Smith, who control most of the wholesale trade in periodicals in Britain, to cut back still further on the number of magazines it will take. Royal Mail has also announced that from September 2004 it will scrap its Newspaper Registration Service, under which registered newspapers can go by first-class post for a second-class stamp.

By a member of NUJ London freelance branch

At the start of the year, the National Union of Journalists (NUJ) chapel at Express and Star newspapers (Daily and Sunday Express, and The Star) resisted the pressure of proprietor Richard Desmond to publish racist articles against asylum-seekers, particularly against the East European Roma people that the papers said would flood into Britain after the 1 May enlargement of the EU.

Workers at Euro Packaging in Birmingham, which makes paper bags, have been on strike against redundancies and for a 37.5 hour week. The workers are members of the Graphical, Paper and Media Union. The employers are notorious for bad pay and conditions (some workers, say the union, work up to 80 hours a week and most are on minimum wage or just above). The GPMU was recently organised and won recognition. The employers have responded by "selecting" key organisers for redundancy.

By a London Freelance branch member

The proposal for the National Union of Journalists to have a political fund has been narrowly defeated in a ballot of members: 53% voted no and 47% yes on a turnout of 28.6%.

NUJ President George Macintyre commented:

"The union will respect the result but will continue to campaign politically around issues that matter to members, and will hope not to face any legal challenge."

On Monday 16 February the BNP started their campaign for the local government elections with demonstrations outside the Commission for Racial Equality and the journalists' union NUJ. Around 50 Nazis demonstrated at lunchtime outside the NUJ HQ on Gray's Inn Road, London.

An NUJ press statement commented: "The reason the BNP has given for the demo is to protest the poor media coverage of the death of a white youth in Oldham, allegedly at the hands of Asian youth. The real reason is to use the opportunity to pose as the defenders of white people from supposed Asian and Black thugs.

By a BECTU member

Hundreds of BBC staff protested in defence of the Corporation's independence on Thursday 5 February.

The demonstrations, called by unions BECTU, NUJ and Amicus, were held outside BBC buildings across the country.

By Lucy Clement

In Paul Burrell's position, let's face it, most people would do the same thing. Cash in. And why not? There's not much respect left for the British Royal Family to destroy, now the Queen Mum's dead and with her all that Blitz-heroine mythology.

It's a shame that Burrell's sticking to the tired old line of 'doing it for Diana', but after all those years as a flunkey it's probably too much to expect him suddenly to come out and declare yes, the Royals are a bunch of parasites and here's the inside story.

By a GPMU member

The Graphical Paper and Media Union held its biennial delegate conference last week in Bournemouth. It was totally dominated by a debate on the future of the union in the face of membership loss and impending financial crisis.

New transport union leader Tony Woodley has pledged to coordinate a trade-union drive "to get Labour back representing working-class people".


After winning election as the new General Secretary of the Transport and General Workers' Union, Woodley declared on 1 June that:

29 May-1 June in the Assembly Rooms,
George Street, Edinburgh

Talks: George Monbiot on "A Manifesto for a New World Order"; Paul Kingsnorth and Mark Curtis on Global Capitalism; Milan Rai and Geoff Simons on Iraq after the war; and Joe Baxter of No Sweat and Gregor Gall on Workers' Struggles and Trade Unions.

By Vicki Morris



Newsquest Bradford managers are becoming increasingly isolated in their stand-off with their workers. Managing director David Coates and his group editor Perry Austin-Clarke have been told by government minster Chris Leslie they should pay their journalists more. Elsewhere in the Newsquest empire, NUJ members are being offered deals considerably better than the miserly two percent on the table at Bradford.

The NUJ chapel at Newsquest Bradford began a 10-day strike over pay on 14 March.

The company had failed to improve on their 2% pay offer since the NUJ chapel staged a week-long stoppage in February. Trainees are on as little as £12,000 and qualified senior journalists on just £15,000.

Newsquest workers at Kendal, who had four days on strike in February, took another four days from 18 March.

By a BECTU member

Outrageous management bullying at Rupert Murdoch's Sky television company has culminated in a vote against union recognition at the firm's Livingston call centre.


Last year, more than 50% of the 466 staff in the Livingston sales centre signed a petition supporting union recognition. By the time a ballot was held more than 100 workers had joined the BECTU union. But, after weeks of intimidation from management, only 47 voted in favour of recognising BECTU, and 277 against.

Journalists strike at greedy Gannett



In brief

• Peugeot Coventry strike

• Train guards’ safety ballot likely

Journalists strike at greedy Gannett