Informed 05 Update


RELX de-recognition fuels union recruitment


Te shock decision in October by Te Lancet-to-Lexis Nexis owner RELX to derecognise the NUJ and end two longstanding collective bargaining agreements early next year has galvanised staff to join the union. Aſter receiving the notice from RELX (which terms itself as a “global provider” of “information-based analytics” but which also owns brands such as Elsevier) without any discussion, NUJ general secretary Michelle Stanistreet condemned the union-busting move. She noted the decision followed a period of “animated organising and recruitment” at Te Lancet and said: “In claiming the mantle as one of the first UK employers to derecognise a union in the early days of a new Labour government, they [RELX] must surely also be aware of the imminent legislative changes to workers’ rights – reform that will make it easier to gain a collective voice at work.” Since October there has been a big


response from reps within RELX, who have asked for meetings with


NUJ Senior Organiser Huda Elmi


management – so far to no avail. NUJ Senior Organiser Huda Elmi, who has put in a formal request for a meeting, said: “For a lot of people, they see this as a sort of shot across the bow that if RELX are going to be making these unilateral, unpopular decisions, without a union there to bargain and negotiate effectively and to protect them, then the writing’s on the wall and it’s going to get worse.” She said that against a wider


background of redundancies and changes in contract provisions in parts of the company, the decision to


derecognise has helped unite staff. “Lots of people have joined the union and there have been lots of meetings. Te reps have been doing brilliant work, bringing people together. “It’s a really big organisation where people are sort of siloed off. So actually, all of these discussions around de- recognition have brought together bits of the various bits of company that otherwise aren’t communicating with each other.” Elmi pointed out the agreement RELX wants to scrap is voluntary but, if it continues its current approach there is the option to make it statutory. Although that is a longer route, “it feels like there’s enough strength of feeling for it to be effective. I think we can and we will get recognition.” In June the Central Arbitration Commitee approved automatic union recognition at the Press Association following a successful campaign by the NUJ.


Elmi said that at RELX there is “real


strength of feeling and mass recruitment going on. People are upset about where this is going and what this means” but keen to engage and negotiate with management, “to collegiately create a strategy for the future.”


Te Irish Times Te NUJ’s resolve in achieving a fair pay deal for journalists at the Irish Times remains, following a failure to reach local agreement. Te Irish Times group of unions, comprising the NUJ, Connect, SIPTU and Unite, has referred management’s refusal to accede a pay increase to the Workplace Relations Commission, reported Séamus Dooley, NUJ assistant general secretary.


Dom Phillips Brazilian police have formally charged the architect of the killing of NUJ member and Guardian journalist Dom Phillips and indigenous expert Bruno Pereira in 2022. Teir deaths highlighted the growing threat to the Amazon rainforest and its people from logging and mining.


Te final police report claimed nine people played a part in the murders along the Amazon’s river Itaquaí;


Phillips and Pereira were shot returning from reporting in the remote Java valley area, Te police did not name the alleged architect of the killings but Brazilian press reports claimed it was Ruben Dario da Silva Villar, an alleged leader of illegal fishing and poaching groups. He has denied involvement in the murders. Te federal police said in a


statement that it had, “over the course of two years of investigation, indicted nine


suspects, and the final report duly identified the mastermind behind the double homicide, who provided ammunition for the crime, financially sponsored the activities of the criminal organisation and intervened to coordinate the concealment of the victims’ bodies. Te other suspects played roles in the execution of the homicides and in the concealment of the victims’ bodies.”


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