The hacking scandal has revealed News International’s influence at the top of British politics, its corruption of police and illegal pursuit of stories that harm ordinary people. The Murdochs have enriched themselves at the expense of others’ misery and used their powerful media empire to attack trade unionists; support illegal wars; fuel racism, sexism and homophobia and demand that governments carry out free market policies at the expense of our welfare services.

Tony Benn, NUJ general secretary Michelle Stanistreet, campaigning lawyer Matt Foot, and Merlin Emmanuel from the Justice for Smiley Culture  (who was killed in police custody), will address the meeting with plenty of time for contributions from the floor about how to reveal and fight the corruption of the press, politicians and police and what sort of media we want.

All welcome.

Tuesday 26 July at 7pm, Conway Hall, Red Lion Square, London WC1R (nearest tube Holborn).

Press Gazette’s take on it is here and they have republished an interview with Jeremy from last year.

The NUJ Left will have a view on the coming election and may well support one of the candidates. This will be discussed at our next national meeting. If you would like to get involved please email nuj.left@googlemail.com

A public meeting in south London on the eve of the BBC and FBU strikes will be addressed by leading members of the unions involved:

• Jeremy Dear, general secretary of the National Union of Journalists (NUJ)
• Becky Branford, BBC NUJ member
• Ian Leahair, from the national executive of the Fire Brigades Union (FBU)

Salvation Army Hall, Princess Street, Elephant and Castle, SE1 6HH, at 7pm on Thursday 4 November.

The meeting has been organised by local campaign group Southwark Save Our Services.

More details on NUJ website, what you can do to help.

Background to the BBC dispute

The attacks on these workers will lead to loss of pay and jobs, worse working conditions, and undermine the safety of our public services.

Unions attacked

The FBU and RMT are also being attacked because they are militant left unions which have defended their members over the years. These attacks are no doubt co-ordinated at Boris Johnson’s London administration and have the full support of the Con-Dem government.

If the RMT and FBU are defeated then this would demoralise other sections of workers who are facing the massive Con-Dem cuts.

Media attacks

The media have vilified both firefighters and Tube workers in attempt to isolate them and soften them up for attack. Workers on strike are rightly angry about the coverage they have been receiving.

We in the NUJleft are also angered by the attacks on our fellow brothers and sisters. Most journalists have nothing to do with these attacks, which are usually orchestrated by management.

The very week that the Firefighters and RMT are on strike, NUJ staff at the BBC are also striking in defence of their pensions. They too have been vilified with claims that staff have gold-plated pensions when it’s the management with the slush funds and pension top up schemes.

Many journalists are suffering from attacks on jobs, wages, and terms and conditions the same as firefighters and tube workers.

Solidarity

We believe that all workers in struggle against the cuts should stand together.

• We encourage all NUJ members to visit FBU and RMT picket lines and hold collections at work for them and the BBC workers.
• Invite strikers to your chapel or branch meetings.
• Get involved in local anti-cuts committees and public meetings. Help spread the message why people are on strike and fighting back
• Challenge where possible poor or partial reporting in the media of the strikes.

Victory to the striking firefighters, tube workers and BBC journalists.

Latest leaflet from BBC reps against the pensions offer

Under the name, Open Channel, a coalition of NUJ and Bectu reps are campaigning for a no vote in the ballot on the BBC’s latest pension offer.

Download a copy here to read and distribute to your work colleagues. Here are highlights of the leaflet below.


“We are a cross-section of union reps at the BBC and we think you should vote “No” in the consultative ballot on the BBC’s CAB 2011 pension plans.

Mark Thompson’s campaign to destroy the final Salary Pension Scheme is based on a sham.

A new estimate suggests that the deficit on the scheme is not £2 Billion. It is not £1.5 Billion. It has now been estimated at £1 Billion – that’s the level at which the Director General promised to reconsider the BBC’s options on the future of the pension scheme.

So, all bets are off. We call on the BBC to re-start negotiations from scratch. The reps’ decision to call this consultative ballot has given staff a chance to see even more of the flaws in the BBC’s plans.

We all have the right to demand that Mark Thompson offers us a pension which will allow us a decent, secure standard of living in retirement.

That’s what we were promised. So far, none of his alternatives to scrapping the Final Salary Pension Scheme gives us that.

“Was it part of the natural order that final-salary schemes would wither and die? Were they killed by incompetence and neglect? Or were they murdered?” from “Who Runs Britain” by Robert Peston, BBC Business Editor”

Vote NO because:

• CAB 2011 means staff will be expected to pay more, to work longer and get less back for their retirement.
• The BBC has refused to consider the unions’ calls to protect our pensions against rising costs of living in the future. You risk losing more than 20% of your pension to inflation under the current plan.
• The BBC’s “final” offer was no such thing. Negotiations are still going on and management have continued to amend key elements of their proposals.
• The new estimate of the pension deficit shows that senior management have used the deficit in a politically-driven attack to close down the Final Salary Scheme.
• BBC staff are not demanding “feather-bedding” or “gold-plated” pensions. The current average pension for BBC staff is £12,500. That’s somewhere between the pension of a fire-fighter and a police officer.

More here

There is also the importance of safety for journalists reporting from conflict zones. Health and safety issues are also one of the main reasons why people join trade unions. A well organised union with safety reps can help reduce injuries at work.

That is why trade unionists should consider becoming health and safety reps. The NUJ has produced this web page that has links to material about health and safety at work and how to become an effective rep on the issue.

During the day. activists discussed strategies for defending jobs and quality in the media, solidarity work, the war in Afghanistan, fascism in the media and the coming ADM.

In the morning session, there were two speakers from the recent successful Tower Hamlets College strike in London. Both speakers pointed to the support the strike had received from fellow trade unionists in the London borough and from the local community. The strike was against provisions for teaching English to people who do not have it as a first language (ESOL), which would have hit the borough particularly hard as it is one of the most ethnically diverse boroughs in London. The Tower Hamlets speakers also emphasised that striking indefinitely galvanised workers at the college far greater than more limited action would have. This had led to a big increase in membership and many new faces becoming involved with the union and the running of the strike.
NUJ member and labour historian Sheila Cohen gave a potted history of industrial struggles and recessions over the past 150 years and drew out a few lessons for today such as workers actions tended to develop more when the economy is moving out of recession.
From the floor, there were discussions about solidarity, types of action the union should be taking and how to organise.

BNP debate
The afternoon kicked off with a session on the NUJ and the issue of the BBC inviting Nick Griffin onto Question Time. The NEC’s Pete Murray put forward a motion that condemned the Question Time decision and supported protests. There was adebate about what attitude should journalists take towards the BNP. Most agreed that there was a difference between journalists reporting facts on the BNP, which after all is part of the job, and allowing the BNP airtime to broadcast its views uncritically. Generally, those present believed that the NUJ as union and its paper The Journalist should educate members in the reality of the BNP and provide information about them. A majority also supported demonstrations and protests against the BNP where they appear in the media.

Afghanistan
Lindsay German from Stop the War Coalition spoke on war in Afghanistan. That war and the one in Iraq have seen thousands of deaths of innocent people. Journalists have been killed and wounded, obstructed from reporting (unless they have been embedded with the coalition forces), lied to or fed false information about the wars and the process leading to them. Meanwhile, the state has used more repressive laws against protests in this country, which again has undermined the ability of journalists and photographers to go about their work. A motion was passed calling for troops out of Iraq and Afghanistan now and to affiliate the NUJ Left to STW.

Postal dispute
Jane Loftus of the Communications Workers Union (CWU) addressed the meeting. She explained the issues that postal workers were striking over. NUJ members agreed that the postal strike was crucial an reported on their own solidarity work including collections, twining chapels/branches with postal workers and helping setting up solidarity committees. A collection was held at the meeting for the postal workers.

Annual delegate meeting
There was a brief discussion about motions going to ADM in November with those present opposing the move to hold a conference in 18 months time, particularly during a period of huge change for the industry. Other motions discussed included union fees, allowing group chapels to send a delegate to conference, a photographers’ organiser, and NUJ support for local campaigns.
The meeting also elected a new NUJ Left steering committee.

Richard is a first-class journalist and, crucially, a committed trade unionist – the essential mix to be the next editor of our union’s magazine at what is certain to be a challenging time for journalists and journalism.

Richard Simcox

The role of the Journalist is to inform, inspire and unite us across the nations and the sectors – wherever we work and whoever we work for. It is how NUJ members share ideas, experiences and tactics.

Richard has been an NUJ rep at a Newsquest newspaper and currently edits a magazine for activists in the Public and Commercial Services union – one of the UK’s biggest and most vibrant trade unions.

He has brought together a broad range of supporters who trust him to develop a Journalist we would be proud to send into workplaces to help raise our union’s profile and recruit new members.

His manifesto, published on his website, states: “Our union journal is much more than just another magazine. It is a powerful tool that unites us – from books to broadcasting, and from Cork to Cardiff, Caithness to Colchester.

“While remembering that the printed edition of the magazine is still the main source of NUJ information for most of our members, we must create a vibrant digital Journalist making full use of the latest technology and social media.”

Richard pledges to:

• Provide a lively and accessible forum for debate and ideas on our campaigns and key issues such as press freedom and media ownership – to sharpen our game.
• Produce a magazine that meets the exacting standards expected by journalists – a journal we can send into workplaces to promote our union and recruit new members.
• Ensure that the Journalist online is a vital and stimulating resource for people who want to be a part of our union every day – not every two months.
• Support NUJ members in the good times and the bad, celebrating successes, learning from defeats, and building confidence for the battles ahead – in every sector, every region and every nation.
• Cover our union’s extensive internal democracy – bread and butter journalism that is currently ignored by the magazine and the NUJ website.

Richard said: “I am grateful for the support of NUJ Left – a group of members who recognise the need for a strong, united, fighting union, especially at a time when media owners have abandoned journalists and journalism.

“There is a strong field of candidates in this election, but I am the only one who is actually doing the job now that the NUJ needs for the Journalist.

“Democracy is vital to our union so I urge all NUJ members to use their vote.”

Weyman Bennett, joint secretary of Unite Against Fascism, will lead the debate on the subject brought again into focus following the BBC’s decision to invite BNP leader Nick Griffin onto Question Time.

The NUJ Left conference will debate our response to the far right and our industrial tactics

Lindsey German, convenor of the Stop the War Coalition, will also speak at the event in central London on Saturday 17 October, leading a session on media coverage of the war in Afghanistan.

The debates will be timely given Griffin is booked to appear just five days after we meet and StW is due to hold a national demonstration over Afghanistan the following Saturday.

The morning session of the conference will be devoted to a debate over industrial strategy and tactics, led by a panel of NUJ activists involved in recent disputes.

This will lead into a discussion on building NUJ Left through solidarity networks across workplaces and branches.

We will also be debating issues around the NUJ national executive council’s proposals about the frequency of delegates’ meetings.

NUJ Left convenor Alan Gibson said: “The NUJ faces massive challenges in which the left in the union can play an enormous role – but only if we not only gather our forces, but go all out to widen and strengthen them.”

The conference will be at St Aloysius social club, 20 Phoenix Road, London (five minutes from Euston Station), between 11am and 4.30pm.

For information email nuj.left@googlemail.com