06 Informed


News Update


Parading with Pride


LGBT+ workers were to the fore as media companies, including Tomson Reuters, Random Penguin, the Financial Times and the BBC, took part in a hot Saturday’s London Pride. Te NUJ, together with the Federation of Entertainment Unions, provided wristbands so its members could join the hundreds of thousands on the parade opened by the mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, and the women and equalities minister, Penny Mordaunt. Te celebration came one day aſter the TUC’s LGBT+ conference in London where the NUJ flagged up positive press coverage of LGBT maters by promoting the work of two of its members, Emilia Bona and Josh Parry of the Liverpool Echo, for their weekly Queer Liverpool podcast which “covers queer culture with a distinctly Scouse voice”. Séamus Dooley, assistant general


Progress on parity A list of top BBC earners, published as part of the corporation’s annual report this month, showed most were white men and demonstrated there is more work to be done, said the general secretary. Te stats of the previous year failed, however, to reflect the significant changes pushed by the unions and implemented over the last six months, progress reported to the NEC. Te union is beginning to setle a number of its 180 equal pay cases, including presenter Carrie Gracie’s, with some women receiving substantial increases and compensation. Te BBC is also in the process of


Project Diamond


Tomson Reuters staff join the throng


secretary, urged unions to recognise that not all media organisations gave a negative press to LGBT issues and journalists oſten had no influence on editorial policy. Te conference backed sending a motion supporting gender self-declaration to go to TUC Congress.


publishing the results of its five diversity work-streams – focused on disability, BAME, women, LGBT, and socio- economic diversity and progression. Te Guardian published its 2018 gender pay figures showing a median gender gap of 6.1 per cent among editorial staff, much lower than between non-editorial, and a range of measures introduced to end the discrepancy. Te Financial Times has reduced its pay gap, with the median falling slightly from 19.4 per cent last year to 18.4 per cent.


Scrap universal credit Te NUJ’s Disability


Members’ Council described the government’s roll-out


Project Diamond, the broadcasting industry’s diversity project, was criticised by a motion supported by the NUJ’s delegates to the TUC’s Black Workers’ Conference, who argued that a more accurate, comprehensive picture of diversity, both in front of the camera and behind it, was needed. Te data needed to be collected on a programme by programme basis, not by genre, they said, if it was to be useful. Te motion called on the Federation of Entertainment Unions to lobby Ofcom to set equality employment and commissioning targets for broadcasters, including independent production companies, and introduce penalties if they failed.


of universal credit as a shambles, saying it had caused hardship and made it more difficult for disabled workers to find employment. Its remarks followed a highly critical report of the policy by the National Audit Office. Delegates at the TUC’s Disabled Workers’ conference agreed a motion calling for universal credit to be scrapped should go to Congress.


PR’s pay shame Te gender pay gap in the PR and comms industry is 21 per cent, an increase from 2016, according to a census produced by industry body, Public Relations and Communications Association. Te gap has


grown from 17.8 per and is the equivalent of £11,364 (£2,253 more than two years ago).


Watch your language Too oſten in the media disabled people are named as either “tragic, scroungers or superhuman” and this allowed the government to put in place policies making their lives considerably worse, Natasha Hirst, NUJ delegate, told the TUC’s Disabled Workers’ Conference. She criticised Project Diamond, saying it counted non-disabled actors playing disabled in its figures and called on Ofcom to introduce penalties to broadcasters which fail to represent disabled people.


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