04 Informed


News Update


Because nobody will look aſter Maryport


Manchester’s Mechanics Institute is famously where the Trades Union Congress was founded in 1868. While our 19th century comrades


would have puzzled over the terms online trolling and clickbait, the experience of poverty pay and bullying managements would have been very familiar. So, it was a fiting venue for the NUJ’s reps’ summit, bringing together union activists and officials to share information, network and draw up strategies to meet the challenges of the industry. Federica Bedendo, the Newsquest


group MoC, said she was proud of colleagues in Cumbria who went on strike at Christmas. She described barely-staffed newsrooms, with experienced journalists being replaced


Adam Christie: health and safety laws are vital


with apprentices on a £7,000 salary. Poverty pay is rife at Newsquest, she says, but it’s even worse where the union isn’t strong.“Despite all, we still do it,” she said. “I always think of my 69-year-old colleague Viv who says she does it ‘because nobody else will look aſter Maryport’.” Steve Bird, Financial Times FoC, said his chapel exposed the gender pay gap


and excessive executive pay. He said: “Tis year’s gap was slightly down, possibly because the union forced the chief executive to take a £1 million pay cut.” Reps were encouraged to pin up their company’s pay gap at the office. Laura Downes, former MoC at RCNi, the health professionals’ publisher, told how a new chief executive’s bullying made people’s life a misery. Collective action resulted in an independent review of the company which backed the union and led to the departure of the CEO and her sidekicks. NEC member Adam Christie explained


how health and safety legislation was the greatest tool for combating bullying and harassment at work. Te reps took part in practical sessions on making a pay claim, determining employment status while a group of local democracy reporters heard from Phil Morcom, chair of the NUJ’s council for communications workers, who said council press officers needed more information about the scheme which pays for council meetings to be reported.


Lunch in your lunchtime Friday 21 June is the longest day of the year and the NUJ is celebrating by urging all members to organise breaks outside offices and newsrooms and to use social media #longestlunch to draw atention to the importance of taking breaks from work. Get your your chapel to


organise some cakes and pies.


Women photographers Te TUC backed a motion by the NUJ calling for more opportunities for women in photography, mentoring schemes and grants to address gender imbalance.


Research shows that only 15 per cent of photojournalists are women.


Te NUJ is holding a


conference on Wednesday 19 June to discuss how to combat the barriers female photographers face.


Gender pay More than a third of UK media companies have had increases in their gender pay gaps, according to a Press Gazete analysis, with the Press Association’s median pay gap rising from 0.5 per cent to 4.6 per cent in favour of men.


Te Economist Group


remains the media company with the highest median


gender pay gap, with women on average paid 29.2 per cent less per hour than men. Wall Street Journal’s Dow Jones, the Telegraph and Mirror Group Newspaper were among the worst offenders. CNN had the biggest median bonus pay gap for the second year, with magazine publisher Hearst going from 3.8 per cent to 50.2 per cent. Companies said their pay gap was down to the fact that more men occupied senior roles.


Vice recognition bid NUJ members at Vice UK have writen to the company seeking union recognition. A staff statement said: “We


are determined to uphold the progressive values that Vice embodies and believe everything that we stand for as a union is in line with these commitments.”


Newsroom diversity Applications are now open for the bursaries provided by the NUJ’s charity, the George Viner Memorial Foundation, to help black and minority ethnic journalism students fund their studies. Find out more on the NUJ


website; the deadline is Friday, 31 May. htps://www.nuj.org. uk/rights/george-viner- memorial-fund/apply-for-a- bursary/


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