NUJ RULE BOOK (2010)

Clearing a path to the NUJ’s unemployment, hardship and death benefits
By Helen Gavaghan, 30th August 2011.
_____________________________________

The Union’s central tenet is:

“To abide by the majority decisions of the union, as expressed in ballots and votes, including any decision to undertake industrial action.”

That I have done in the matter of strike action within my own workplace. In the 1980s. But I have not condoned closed shops, official or otherwise, and never will. Nor would an individual’s membership, or otherwise, of the NUJ influence whether I commissioned, worked for or worked with anyone else.

Nor will I condemn anyone who is an NUJ member, who, with good intentions, crosses an NUJ picket line. If need be strikers could draw straws as to who might on a given day cross a picket line and work that day. Or is that against the law? Or hard to manage legally? If it is against the law I withdraw the suggestion. But a thin issue rather than no issue might keep lines open for possible negotiation leading to settlement of disputes. The title’s responsibility to its advertisers would be maintained.

And, other than in a legal strike against my own employer over terms and conditions, providing there was no intent to impose compulsory redundancy on a fellow NUJ member, I would be willing to cross an NUJ picket line and say what I was paid for doing so. Compulory redundancy can be accepted if it has to be without it becoming voluntary.

My pay, were I to cross an NUJ picket line, would not be less than that of staff, because I am freelance. Freelancers work simultaneously for more than one outlet and carry all their own employment costs (some of which, such as holiday pay, are not tax deductible, in addition to the usual tax and national insurances), as well as the risks, so their rate ought always to be higher than a staff rate. That pricing structure should protect both staff jobs and freelance rates.

Currently the NUJ rules say that chapels should make arrangements with their freelancers giving them the vote in chapel activities concerning industrial action, strikes and pay and conditions. I disagree with that rule in total. As a successful freelancer in the late 90s and early noughties, when I was not an NUJ member, I worked at the same time for directly competing publications. What possible justification in a Court of law would I have had for seeking to influence any chapel’s behaviour? Involvement in chapel activity would have killed my business stone dead, brought me no benefit, nor benefit to the chapel.

Luckily, during that time, no one I worked for took industrial action.

Luckily, too, nothing in the rules says freelancers must participate in chapel activities, even though the rules call on chapels to involve freelancers.

What if owners then seek to bring out the publication or broadcast on a regular basis with freelancers, be they NUJ members or not?

If law does not already exist preventing people being elbowed out of their jobs in that way then it should.

I would also cross the picket line of another union, even if it was striking against my own employer, and no matter what the cause. Employment law exists to tackle employer wrong doing. If the strike of another Union is because employment law has failed then Unions jointly, including the one I belong to, can approach their MPs and mount campaigns to plug gaps through which wrongdoing falls. And me as a journalist not crossing the picket lines of, say, a teaching union, only saves the owner/employer money and so is a disincentive to negotiation.

These views put me in opposition to a judicial comment from 1921.

Quote
In Mycroft v Sleight (1921) a judge said an allegation that a trade unionist attempted to work during a strike would be defamatory because it would be so regarded, not only by his fellow trade unionists, but by “ordinary, just and reasonable citizens” generally.
End of quote
p2 of Law for Journalists by Anthony Richards, M&E Handbooks.

Perhaps.

HIGHLIGHTING THE EXISTENCE OF THE NUJ RULEBOOK FOR ACCESS TO UNEMPLOYMENT AND DEATH BENEFITS
What really concerns me, though, about our rule book is that the rule book’s existence is not actively brought to the attention of members. Nor in the 1980s, when I was one of many M/FoCs in group chapels at IPC, did anyone tell me the rule book existed, nor the code of conduct, nor that there were handbooks for reps. That was the days before websites, but still…

I acted by instinct, belief and in accord with our votes and the particular group chapel FOC in charge when I was MoC of a smaller group.

I am not alleging wrong doing then, nor rigid adherence now to rigidly applied rules, but I am saying that that way of doing business – not being clear what rules exist – is disempowering. Disempowering through silence or seeking to exclude others is always suspect. Branches and chapels need to play more fairly by members by pro active provision of information about quora of meetings and the NUJ rule book, so that all can exercise within the union the equality which is theirs within the union.

I think, too, the rule book should not be password protected in the members only section of the NUJ website, but directly accessible from our home page. That way potential members would know in advance if those are rules they wish to work by.

My own branch, Calderdale, does not have a union development officer and has not had one since I joined. Only when the existence of the rule book was brought to my attention by a non branch member did I learn of this lack. The branch itself seems not to have noticed, but this is an important post.

What I did notice, though, and even without knowledge of the rule book’s existence, was the lack of clarity about what constituted our quorum. Only on 12th July, 2011, at my insistence, observed by Adam Christie from the Union’s NEC, and as reported to me, her assistant, by our branch secretary and meeting convenor, Maggie Woods, did our branch set its quorum as being any four members of the branch, irrespective of whether they are committee members.

The quorum number is important for all branch members to know so that all may be empowered and not disempowered by in groups or cliques setting agendas – the very thing which we object to when done to us by boards of directors.

A branch meeting is needed to enable members to have access to many benefits their subscriptions entitle them to.

In addition, lurking in the depths of the NUJ rule book, is a trap for the unwary. It is an unfair trap because it could make someone ineligible for benefits or hardship funds and at a time which could make the difference between them drowning or being washed ashore. No joke, you see.

What is this trap for the unwary?

“Rule 24. Discipline.
Subsection f, conduct detrimental to the interest of the Union shall be deemed to include:
(f)(i) Maintenance of membership of the Institute of Journalists while a member of the Union.”

I have no view about whether merger with the Chartered Institute of Journalists would be a good or a bad thing – call me a floating voter on that one – but I have no doubt that rule 24, f(i) should be removed and membership of the two organizations viewed as compatible and made compatible. Barriers to making the organizations compatible ought not to prevent removal of the rule. This can be a unilateral NUJ decision followed by some development of compatible rules for access to benefits and services. If we have to offer amnesty to anyone who inadvertently breached this rule then so be it.

I also have no doubt that when we invite journalists to join us we should tell them of this other organization so that they may have a choice as to which body they join – until they may join both.

I am not blaming anyone that I did not know of the CIoJ when I became a journalist on leaving University in 1980. I worked in trade and technical publications, before moving to consumer press (New Scientist) and then to the international science press, but I would have liked the choice. Perhaps their rules exlude magazine journalists.

In summary: clearly we must stay within the law, but judicial sound bites from other eras and the folk lore of other trade union disputes with other causes must not set our agenda in our times.

Two typos corrected immediately post publication.
Two further typos corrected post publication.
Proviso: I have written to the National Executive Committee to tell them when I rejoined the NUJ in December 2005 I was in London and it is very unclear to me which branch I belong to now or ought to belong to.
Three further typos corrected.