THE PRESS

The row at the 'Telegraph'

BILL GRUNDY Everybody knows that the Daily Telegraph is read by people who live in the suburbs,

wear dark jackets, striped trousers and bowler hats, carry a rolled umbrella, sport a military moustache, vote Conservative, and believe very firmly that strikers should be thrown into jail, after which they should be

shot at dawn every morning for their own good and to the benefit of the nation's economy. Everybody also knows that the people who write the Daily Telegraph are exactly the same in every respect.

It may astonish you, therefore, to learn that for three weeks running, production of the paper has been disrupted by two-hour mass meetings in the sixth floor canteen, which happens to be the floor above the suite occupied by the proprietor, Lord Hartwell. It may astonish you even more to learn that, for the first time in his- tory, the world 'strike' was uttered with

approval at those meetings. Since the Sun- day Telegraph's admirable 'Close-up' team are unlikely to be asked to do a fearless

piece on this particular episode, I am afraid you will have to make do with my version —a poor thing doubtless, but mine own.

It all goes back to the Prices and Incomes Board's report on journalists' pay. This recommended a minimum rate of £2,200 a year after five years in Fleet Street. It also asked for urgent action by every paper to introduce house agreements and a rational

salary structure. The Telegraph manage- ment took a somewhat narrow view of

these recommendations. How would you, if you were a senior member of staff, like to receive a duplicated letter saying: 'While

awaiting the PIB report on the NPA-NUJ

agreement, the management has undertaken a complete revision of the editorial salaries list. Under this your salary remains at fX'?

Not perhaps the finest example of good management you've ever come across? Yet

about half the members of the Telegraph

editorial staff got that and nothing more. Some people did get increases—the re- porters and sub-editors below the new minimum; those around that figure got a hundred or so a year extra. The consequent effect on differentials gave rise to a lot of anomalies and, inevitably, to anger.

The top men shared in this, too. Further- more, they were joined by their peers from

the Sunday Telegraph: people like Deputy

Editor Peregrine Worsthorne, Political Correspondent Ian Waller, Industrial Cor- respondent Peter Paterson, the Mandrake team, and others. Some of these people were well to the fore at the angry union

chapel meetings, giving added force to the protests of the 'Daily' staff, amongst them the night news editor and his entire news desk team.

Talks between the management and the union 'chapel' did nothing to help. The

management claimed that implementing the P1B report would push their salary bill up by a higher percentage than it would on any other Fleet Street paper. The increases which had been awarded were held up as proof of `generosity'; to union members they merely showed how many Telegraph people had been on or near the minimum.

A fortnight ago, a packed chapel meeting decided to go over the heads of the manage- ment and write straight to Lord Hartwell.

His reply was evasive. Another letter to him warned him of the feeling and of the risk of strike action on 1 July. Just over an hour before the crucial chapel meeting was about to start, the meeting which would inevitably have decided to strike, a second

letter came from Lord Hartwell. It admitted that the increase offered had been `mean'— indeed, it used that word twice; it under- took to carry out a fresh review of salaries, to be backdated to I January; and it suggested immediate talks with the union about a house agreement. The offer has been accepted and a draft agreement has been proposed by the chapel which would provide salaries ranging from the new five year minimum of £2,200 up to £6,000, a substantial increase when you consider how few Daily Telegraph top writers get much over £3,000.

Whether Lord Hartwell will take fright at these demands has yet to be seen. But back- tracking will surely be difficult after his letter. And I feel pretty certain the chapel would, in fact, never allow it. They've tasted blood, and the saltiness of it could very well grow on them. The sad thing about it all is that the Daily Telegraph has always been a very happy paper to work for. There has always been a strong sense of fair play and of being part of a family. Lord Hart- well, though shy and a bad mixer, gets a lot of respect from his staff, who know him to be not just a proprietor, but an active journalist-editor.

If these advantages have now disap- peared, I can't help thinking that the management are almost entirely to blame. Which does bring up the part they played in the dispute. What was the role of Lord Hartwell's three editors, for example— Messrs Green (Daily), Roberts (Sunday), and Anstey (Magazine)? Or of John Evans, the general manager, H. M. Stephen, the managing director, or H. M. Stevens, the company secretary with the confusingly similar name? And what about Lord Hart- well himself? Did he know of the produc- tion hold-ups when his news- and subs- room staffs walked out to attend those rebellious union meetings? Is he aware just how far behind so many staff salaries had become, the salaries of the people who actually produce the thing that newspapers are made up of—words? I don't know what the answers to those questions are. Some people say that Lord Hartwell really had no idea of what was going on and how much feeling was building up. But if this is so, surely it puts a big query against his top management who, I seem to remember, didn't come in for two much praise from the Economist Intelligence Unit in its report on the press only a couple of years back.

Well, whatever the rights and wrongs of the matter, for the moment strike action has been avoided. And a good thing too. For it has just occurred to me that for the Daily Telegraph to go on strike this week of all weeks would have had tragic results. Deprived of their coverage of Caernarvon, royalist readers all over the realm would have died of an apoplexy. A great national disaster has therefore been averted. Praise be to all concerned. A blessing on both your houses.