14


Recruitment should be a top priority, branches are told


Branches were asked last November to focus on recruitment for the week of November 12th, under the theme, “Strength in Numbers – Building Your Union.”


Events that branches in Dublin held during


that week drew particular attention to the ongoing and wide-ranging work of the NUJ across Ireland and across the sectors.


Those events included a screening of the documentary, “No Stone Unturned”, accompanied by a panel discussion with producer Trevor Birney; a seminar on covering courts with Chief Justice, Mr Frank Clarke; a Women at Work lunch at the Gresham Hotel with special guest Sian Jones, NUJ president, and guest speaker Dr Laura Bambrick, ICTU social policy officer; and a seminar on making the FOI work for you with journalist Ken Foxe. But while that week may have come and


gone, the need to build our union must continue to remain a priority for all of us. Recruitment is of critical importance following the decision of last year’s NUJ Delegate Meeting to reject an increase in membership subscriptions, which has left membership growth the only way to maintain current services. We all have a role in this. Branches should be


in touch with chapels to see how this work of recruitment can be facilitated on the ground in workplaces. Every one of us can talk to colleagues who are not members about the value of NU membership. Don’t limit recruiting to your workplace – talk to other journalists, staff and freelance, that you see in your travels. The Dublin office can provide literature and


links useful for recruitment to branches or chapels. As ever, we’re stronger together.


Ten shillings for smoking, pictures and dancing (Continued from page 13)


O’Hanrahan was sufficiently impressed to offer Eadie the opportunity of a probation, with the approval of his partners, Paddy Nerney and C.E Callan. Probation meant long hours and hard work.


“Two pounds and ten shillings a week. Ten shillings for smoking, pictures and dancing and the rest on digs in Boyle. On Monday morning my mother gave me cash for the bus from Roscommon and Boyle.” As a general reporter he was also required to


tout “for sales and advertising”. Eadie recalled hearing of the advances made by the NUJ in the national agreements of 1947 and decided to apply for union membership to the now defunct Athlone and District branch. He was admitted to membership on April 1st, 1951, but not without a disagreement. He was at first refused admission to the


branch, on the basis that he was only a probationer. The logic applied was that the


union was for permanent staff and if they took on probationers they would have to defend them if they were not taken on permanently. It was an experience which shaped his attitude to trade unionism and as a full-time union official Jim Eadie was always committed to the welfare of young recruits. He was especially alive to the use of union rules to unfairly restrict entry to the profession. Coincidentally his successor as Irish


Secretary, Eoin Ronayne, was also refused membership of the union first time round, because he had been working on an illegal pirate radio station. In turn, Séamus Dooley succeeded Ronayne,


having also suffered the indignity of rejection by Athlone and District branch in 1981 on the basis that he was “a Communications student masquerading as a journalist”, the Eighties equivalent of a probationer!


From Left Lives in Twentieth Century Ireland, Vol 2.


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