Comrade Bear

Redundancies for profits

There are a number of prized possessions, I will never throw away. None of them are of any intrinsic   value.

One is a teddy-bear wearing the badges of a journalists union and a print union. It was thank-you present for something I did in 1987. It could have wreaked my chances of a political career.

The local Newport paper the Argus announced a savage cut in the number of printing jobs. The journalists and the printers went on strike for six weeks. I was then the candidate for the Tory held seat of Newport West and working full time for Euro MEP Llew Smith. We handed over our office for use by the strike committee.

I was warned that it was political suicide to antagonise the local paper when a General Election was six months away. The strike was solid and proved the strength of the trade union movement. My support of the strikers did not win me any friends on the Argus Editorial staff – but lots among the journos. It was certainly the right thing to do. In spite of a hostile editorial, praising the sitting MP and rubbishing me, I still won. Furthermore I still have the teddy bear.

Alas, virtually all those unions have now gone. The Argus is taking advantage with yesterday’s news of ‘redundancies for profits' announcement.

Gutted blogs

This website has been liberated.

We are no longer censored by Commons’ officials with the petty-fogging rules that Parliament has adopted. For nine years, I have had a great uninhibited romp and exposed a few scandals and won a few prizes.

There have been new rules introduced with the Communications Allowance. It’s no longer permitted to say anything derogatory about other MPs. Indeed anything that gives spice, colour and humour to websites is forbidden.

Mind damagingly tedious guff explaining the virtues of the local MP are allowed. So are endless pictures of the MP, press releases and speeches. The problem is that no-one will read such a website in the same way that no one reads political propaganda..

I had the choice of gutting my website of everything of interest or go freelance and fund the site myself. This I will do. It will be interesting to watch the fading of officially blessed sites and the blooming of liberated ones.

Tony's Trip

A lucky colleague spent his Christmas break with a week in gloriously cold Canada and the second week  in gloriously warm Florida. He spotted this advert for an afternoon with Tony Blair in the city of Toronto.

No price for the tickets was advertised. But the event was heavily sponsored. Why does Tony think he is qualified to pontificate on this? It is his expert experience of bringing together the communities of Iraq? It could with justification be Northern Ireland, but others were involved there and it's hardly global. Sadly he was wrong as often as he was right. Nearly 300 British soldiers paid for his mistake in dragging the UK into Bush’s war in Iraq.

Letter to the Argus.

Gavin Stacey

Gerry Keighley

08 January 2008

Thank you for your e-mail yesterday. I had a phone call from a constituent who is likely to be made redundant. He tells me that he is believes he will receive only his statutory redundancy payments. If this is true this is an appalling situation.

What you propose is to rob Newport of a substantial numbers of jobs and skills and give your readers a poorer product. It’s not only the present staff that will be losing out but future employees and the city will be deprived of the newsprinting facilities that have been a feature of our industrial life for centuries.

The change is being made for one reason only – to increase the profits of Gannet and Newsquest. There has been under-investment in the Newport printing plant for many years with over-investment in Oxford and Worcester. Printing overnight means a poorer product with stale news. But your e-mail suggest that you will increase your income from sales in addition to cost saving by printing elsewhere.

Your workers, my constituents, are entitled to a major contribution from Gannet and Newsquest into their redundancy funds. It is now common practice for solvent prosperous companies to make such contributions in these circumstances. There have been several local and national examples.

The redundancies of six journalist in 2006 and the hike in the pension contributions indicates that the Argus as a rogue employer. I hope this heartless decision can be reconsidered.

Comments

[paulflynn]

I am holding fire until I have met management. I believe we must initiate some action to ensure that the people of Gwent know that they have a ruthless, mean rogue employer in the area. Perhaps potentia employees should have a health warning before joining the company. Please keep in touch.

[Lawrence Shaw]

Hi Paul,

Where we have unionisation, we generally attempt to win enhanced redundancy terms. However, as a former Gannett employee myself, I know they are completely uncaring when it comes to terminating employment and sadly they will do the absolute minimum to ensure every penny can go to the bottom line profits.

I had heard through Rosemary Butler's office that you are meeting with management, and while the NUJ is not (yet!) recognised for the purposes of collective bargaining at the South Wales Argus, if there is anything I can do to assist, just give me a call.

Good luck!

Lawrence Shaw
NUJ Wales Organiser
[email protected]

[paulflynn]

Thanks Lawrence. It's desperately sad. I remember many Argus journalists who gave their talents to the paper that they held in high regard.

There are only a tiny number of those who went on strike in 1986 that still around. The contrast between those proud years and the present demoralisation is stark and a warning to all unionised workplaces.

On Friday I will see management. I believe they are behaving abominably for the reasons you give. It all about profit. Is it usual to give just statutory redundancy without any top-up from a solvent prosperous company in your industry?

[Lawrence Shaw]

Hi Paul,

Just to let you know the NUJ is not dead and gone! In fact, in the last quarter, our membership in Wales has increased!

We welcome your comments on the voracious profiteering by Gannett.

The South Wales Argus performs a vital community service to Newport and has a team of dedicated and professional journalists.

However, Gannett is more interested in increasing the profit margins at any cost. It is worth bearing in mind these profits effectively come from the local advertisers and readers in Newport.

We need greater powers to hold these media owners to account for what they are doing, or this kind of thing will continue to happen.

Regards

Lawrence Shaw
NUJ Wales Organiser
[email protected]

[paulflynn]

Thanks Matt.

I do not think that will be necessary. There is understanable nervousness about the new allowances that should not be used for party political purpose. the rules for that have been transferred to websites that were previously permitted to express campaigning views. I have always avoided overt party propaganda. But it's very restrictive to be denied the chance of being critical of other politicians.

Even without the censors, the political sites will die of boredom anyway.

[Matt W]

Does that mean if we all go onto the "supervised" websites and say lots of derogatory things about MPs it will keep all the censors occupied?

Hmmm.