NUJ debate In praise of a broad church


active, talented member who simply could not get past that 50 per cent mark. Perhaps we should start looking at different criteria. After all, does the proportion of one’s earnings necessarily reflect the amount of work done or even its quality? How do other unions with large freelance memberships cope? Two come to mind, both of them


fellow members of the Federation of Entertainment Unions: the Writers’ Guild and Equity, the actors’ union. The Guild lets you in if you have


Now that having other jobs is common, should the NUJ’s membership rules change? asks Jenny Vaughan


T


he media is changing: online publications and broadcasts are expanding, while traditional forms are


under ever greater pressure. How can the NUJ adapt to this? Our rules already offer membership in a range of jobs that purists might not see as journalism (see rule 2: https:// www.nuj.org.uk/about/nuj-rules). Maybe we should also think hard about how we organise in the plethora of small-scale, badly (and even non) paying publications that are growing up. Our rules say that, to become a full member with the rights and responsibilities that brings, journalism must be your ‘principal occupation’, providing at least 50 per cent of your earned income. For staffers that is relatively


straightforward, but for freelances – nearly a quarter of our 26,000+ members – it is less so. There’s a raft of would-be or part-time journalists who are not eligible to join the NUJ. They may never be able or even want to overcome the 50 per cent barrier. But they won’t give up journalism. The union’s solution is temporary membership for those ‘seeking to make a career in journalism’. We have more than 350 temporary members. Temporary membership comes with limited responsibilities and support


and lasts a maximum of three years. If, at the end of that time, you have not passed the 50 per cent mark, you must leave the union. But in the world of the gig economy,


where having other jobs is likely to be the norm, does this criterion, based not on how much journalism someone does but on the proportion of their income it brings, make sense? Is it fair? Someone with the support of a wealthy partner or family can afford to qualify even if they do very little – while more productive would-be members are kept out. It is hard for branches to know what


happens to every temporary member they admit, but sometimes we find out. Take, for example, a member of the


NUJ’s London Freelance Branch (LFB), whose temporary membership will soon come to an end. She had a regular column in a local paper, writing about community issues. Her work was praised, both by that community and within the NUJ. She was an enthusiastic member. But the paper, when it pays at all, offers only 10p a word (£100 per 1,000 words). Unless our temporary member can persuade someone to give her enough work at decent rates (not an easy task these days), she must drop out of the union. Similarly, a colleague in Manchester mourns the loss from her branch of an


“


Someone with a wealthy partner can join if they do very little – while more productive people are kept out


written one or more pieces of work under contract ‘for which payment has been received at union rates, or earned more than £5,000 from ‘non- journalistic’ writing (https:// writersguild.org.uk/join-renew/ full-membership). There is no assumption that you must have ever made or expect to make a significant amount of your living from writing. Equity members, whose professions are renowned for employment insecurity, need only to have ‘one job on an Equity contract, or evidence of earnings in excess of £500 from the industry in an area of work covered by Equity’ (https://www.equity.org.uk/ about/how-to-join). Both unions accept that members


may look elsewhere for work to survive, but that does not detract from their identity as writers or actors. It even seems that sometimes members call on their union for support outside the area of Equity work. LFB chair Matt Salusbury describes working on a magazine, where several actors were in telesales and one needed employment advice. Salusbury says: “His Equity rep didn’t ask any questions… there seemed to be an acceptance that members had day jobs other than acting and needed advice on how to stay in that regular work… if they needed that steady income stream alongside whatever irregular stuff they did as actors.” Is our profession ready to be more


flexible about its entry requirements? It’s hard to imagine the NUJ going as far as that Equity rep, but might it be time to think about how we, too, address the issue of recruiting and serving potential members in our increasingly precarious working world?


theJournalist | 23


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