Ask not what yo union can do for


Members should play a more of a part in union life – as they used to, says Paul Breeden


A


LONG time ago (I’ve just become a life member, so you can work it out) I started as a junior reporter on a weekly paper in the Home Counties. The tightly packed town centre office squeezed in six reporters, a news


editor, a sub-editor, a photographer and an editor – all to cover two small market towns which comprised a single parliamentary constituency. My innocent eyes widened when I was told that this small office was home to a number of intimate relationships, some of them public knowledge and some more clandestine. One journalist was alleged to be in relationships with the two reporters who sat either side of them. I could say more but this is a family magazine. What has this to do with the NUJ, you harrumph? Well,


journalists do form relationships like anyone else, and this is just one of the things that has become much more difficult since our industry was slashed to ribbons over the last 20 years. That town centre office is long closed and, as far as I can tell, there isn’t a single reporter left who covers the constituency exclusively. Local journalism is conducted principally by young, underpaid journalists who work from home and scarcely meet their colleagues.


One thing that has resulted from the jobs carnage of the


past few years is that union membership has increased in many workplaces where journalists are permanently worried where next the axe will fall. That should lead to an increase in union participation and


activism, right? Well, no. Let me revisit the distant past once again. Our


crowded little office was populated mainly by NUJ members. I joined partly because of my own politics but partly because so many of my colleagues were members. It was the sensible thing to do; if we stood together, we could prevent the exploitation of any of us by management and, hopefully, achieve better pay and conditions. Those things proved to be true because, in our own little


way, we were organised. We had our own father or mother of chapel (not, I hope, a term to be entirely lost to history) and a chapel secretary. We were part of a group chapel in the county-based company that employed us and members of a regional branch. When we had a group meeting, which was not infrequent,


we piled into our cars and headed for a pub in the London suburbs. We were out of the office for two or three hours. Not an eyebrow was raised; this was just what happened. When we were in dispute over wages, we didn’t go on strike – not that that would have been too difficult to arrange, as this was before the Thatcher restrictions on ballots and notice periods. No, we simply worked to rule. This meant that we didn’t do any work. If we were asked to do so, we said that


Get involved and make the union better for all


Attend a meeting Your branch or chapel is a great network if nothing else. Talk about a matter that


concerns you. Consider if there is some way you could help run things. If the meeting is boring or


irrelevant, think of ways in which the union could serve people like you better – and do your bit to bring those things to fruition.


12 | theJournalist


Have your say The union is acting on and talking about issues from artificial intelligence to Gaza, ethics to journalist safety, copyright to freelance rates. You’re bound to feel strongly


about some of them. Contribute to the debates. Write to The Journalist and tell


the editor how this article has got it all wrong.


Spread the word If your colleagues are not members, tell them what they are missing.


Get some training NUJ training for reps and activists is brilliant and free. There is professional training too at reduced rates.


What not to do Pay your subs and do nothing else.


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