The Koninglijke Vlaamse Schouwburg theatre in Belgium has hosted a protest concert in support of quality journalism at a major Flemish-language daily paper.

The newspaper, De Morgen, faces losing one in four of its editorial staff, a move which is likely to kill its ability to deliver reportage of any quality, the NUJ Brussels branch website says.

This concert was a good initiative which should be replicated on as wide a scale as possible, as our industry faces its worst jobs crisis in living memory.

The NUJ website is reporting today that thousands of our members have now either voted for, or are being balloted for, industrial action. These include:

• More than 3,000 members at the BBC being balloted after the corporation announced compulsory redundancies in Scotland
• Journalists at Shropshire Newspapers and Staffordshire Newspapers overwhelmingly backing industrial action over cutbacks
• Journalists at the BBC South Asian service walking out over outsourcing overseas that will mean worse working conditions and news produced under local censorship laws
• Journalists fighting redundancies at Newsquest York giving notice of possible industrial action every weekday until the end of March
• Ballots for industrial action over cutbacks underway at the Derry Journal in Northern Ireland, the Independent in London, and the Surrey-based Reed Business Information magazine group.

NUJ Left naturally gives its support to these and all other chapels taking or considering industrial action.

But two things are necessary. We need to do more to enable activists to share some of the lessons being learned in these disputes, and those learned from disputes of the past.

And we need urgently to raise money (and profile) for our members suffering hardship in defence of their living standards and the quality of the media they work in.

The Belgian protest gig is a good initiative. NUJ Left should respond. One suggestion is a ’stand up’ for journalism comedy benefit gig. Others are welcome.

Posted by NUJ Left