Guardian group to sell Manchester Evening News and other local titles
12 February 2010

The Scott Trust, which controls the Guardian group, is to sell many of its regional titles and websites to Trinity Mirror. This includes titles such as the Manchester Evening News.

Read the rest of this entry »

Blackpool votes on industrial action
12 February 2010

The NUJ is balloting members at the Blackpool Gazette and Herald for industrial action.

The dispute concerns the company’s failure to consult meaningfully over proposed changes to working arrangements and failure to guarantee there will be no compulsory redundancies. The union is also demanding assurances on staffing numbers, pay, grading and status for those affected by the proposed changes.
“A total of 37 chapel members are being balloted,” said NUJ North of England organiser Chris Morley, “and we plan to send ballot papers out on February 16. TThe ballot is due to close on March 2.”
(taken from NUJ website)
Right to work conference, only five days to go
25 January 2010

The Right to Work campaign will be holding a conference on the 30 January in Manchester to organise resistance to job cuts. So far more than 50 union branches are backing it and more than 500 people have registered to attend.

Speakers include Mark Serworka (PCS), Sally Hunt (UCU), Jerry Hicks (Unite) and the NUJ’s own Jeremy Dear. There are plenty of other speakers and workshops.

Workers, students and unemployed are encouraged to attend

Full details of registration and the day itself, plus local transport are  here http://sites.google.com/site/righttoworkconference

Paean to a closed magazine
8 January 2010

Missed this the first time. But Newsnight’s Paul Mason blogs movingly about Contract Journal, the magazine where he started his journalistic career. Contract Journal was closed last November after more than a 100 years of printing.

A story that could be told about many magazines

NUJ ADM Southport 2009 report
8 December 2009

The Southport ADM has given the NUJ a strong platform to build a sustained campaign for action to resist a further assault on jobs, pay and the conditions under which we have to work. Here, Alan Gibson gives the highs and the lows of the conference and identifies some of the key issues in the coming year.

Read the rest of this entry »

Murray makes waves by the sea
29 September 2009
2009-09-27_K8K0712

Photo: Jonathan Warren

NUJ vice president Pete Murray says the Labour party has “lost its will to fight” and only united action from the unions and others can defend jobs and defeat the far right.

Speaking on behalf of the NUJ at the Jobs, Education, Peace rally in Brighton on Sunday, Pete contrasted the protesters out on the streets in the sunshine with those shut up inside the Labour party conference centre opposite.

Read the rest of this entry »

Demand jobs and peace in Brighton
20 September 2009

By Dave Crouch

More than 100 trade unionists packed into the London Welsh Centre on Thursday night to hear the NUJ’s general secretary Jeremy Dear and a host of leading union activists call for a powerful protest in Brighton next weekend at Labour party conference.

Fresh from the TUC in Liverpool, Jeremy spoke about the government’s lack of political will – unemployment can be beaten, but it means a change of priorities from the banks to working people, he said.

Read the rest of this entry »

Cuts could spell end of Express
17 September 2009

As trade unionists met in London this evening to help build for the Jobs, Education, Peace demo at Labour party conference on Sunday 27 September, father of the NUJ chapel at Express Newspapers, Steve Usher, sent this message of support:

Surviving NUJ members at the Express titles are currently going through yet another redundancy exercise.

Read the rest of this entry »

Use the protest to mount the fightback
4 August 2009

Branches and chapels will be urged to sign up to a campaign to put jobs and journalism at the top of the political and industrial agenda this autumn.

Activists met this evening to begin planning the NUJ’s involvement in what we hope will be a massive showing of union solidarity at the Labour party conference on 27 September.

Read the rest of this entry »

A message to Labour: jobs, education, peace
29 July 2009

by Dave Crouch

We are living through the worst economic crisis for 60 years. No one has any idea how it will pan out or when it will end.

Unemployment is soaring. Yet where are the unions? We should be battering on the doors of parliament.

Read the rest of this entry »