04 Informed


News Update


We ♥ a pay rise


It’s time the newspaper and media industries showed journalists some love.


Tat will be the message of an NUJ campaign during the TUC’s HeartsUnions Week from February 11 to 17. And the best way they can show their love is to pay proper wages and freelance rates.


Journalists have had enough of puting up with poverty pay and deals which bear no relation to the cost of living. Te Retail Price Index rose 31 per cent between 2008-17 – an average of 2.9 per cent annually – while most members’ pay flat-lined over that decade. At the same time, jobs have been relentlessly cut, new technology introduced and


additional tasks added to already busy workloads so that editorial productivity has soared.


It isn’t just in Cumbria and the rest of the regional press where pay is a problem. Starting salaries and the rate for some digital jobs on the nationals are so pitiful that it is virtually impossible to live in London or Dublin where rents and house prices are out of reach. Freelance rates and photographers’ fees have barely budged in the past decade on newspapers and magazines.


Te week is also an opportunity for unions and reps to showcase their good work. Let us know about your successes by contacting us at campaigns@nuj.org. uk


We are also nearing the next deadline


for companies with more than 250 employees to report their gender pay gaps. Last year the statistics revealed that 91 per cent of UK-based media companies paid men more than women on average. Women, particularly in the books and magazine sectors, were deeply shocked to see how much more the men in their office were geting. NUJ Training is puting on a one-day course in London on Tursday 21 March to improve equality in the workplace, including a session with Natasha Morris, the NUJ’s legal & equality officer, on how to put an equal pay claim together. Contact nujtraining@nuj.org. uk to book your place.


Death threat Te NUJ strongly condemned a death threat to a journalist working in Belfast. A motion from the NEC noted the member had received a “threat to life notice” from the Police Service Northern Ireland which said there was immediate risk of an atack by criminal elements. It said: “Tis NEC stands shoulder to shoulder with the member concerned and demands that those behind this threat liſt it immediately and do so in a manner that is unequivocal and unconditional,” it said. Te most dangerous decade for journalists, page 11


Cardiff screening NUJ members Trevor Birney and Barry McCaffrey, out on bail aſter being arrested for their part in the making of the film No Stone Unturned about the murder of six football fans in a village pub in Northern Ireland in 1994, will be speaking at a screening at JOMEC 2 on Tursday 7 February. More details and tickets: htps:// www.eventbrite. co.uk/o/nuj-amp- jomec-18506670168


Dutch auction Te NEC sent a message of solidarity to members of the Dutch union Nederlandse Vereniging van Journalisten


for its campaign for beter rates of pay for photojournalists. Te union organised a strike on January 25 to put pressure on media organisations for a 14 per cent increase to keep up with inflation since 2010. A survey of freelance rates showed they fell from €80 (about £70) a photo in 2014 to an average rate today of €42 with some prices falling as low €15 to €20.


NUJ structures Te development commitee, overseen by assistant general secretary Séamus Dooley, has set up a working group to carry out a root and branch review of the union’s structures.


LGBT champion


Ben Hunte will take up a new role next month at the BBC as its first LGBT correspondent. His job will be to break and provide LGBT stories across the BBC’s output, including digital and podcasts. Te NUJ’s charity, the George Viner Memorial Fund, awarded Ben a bursary to help pay for his master’s degree in TV studies at City University. While there he interned at the BBC News and worked on the BBC’s Gay Britannia season; his programme with Paul O’Grady was the most listened to on BBC 4 Extra. While at university he interned at BBC News and earned more commissions at BBC London and Channel 5 News. He is now working at BBC Africa on What’s New, a round-up of positive stories about young people on the continent.


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