Cheap words
THE PRESS BILL GRUNDY
For two days last week the journalistic staff of the Daily Mirror in Manchester went on strike. For two days we in the north were deprived of Garth, Andy Capp, and the Old Codgers, not to mention George Gale and the rest of this very vigorous daily paper.
All this is important because it is the only time most people can remember that journalists have gone on unofficial strike. They must there- fore be fairly het-up. They are. They are het-up about two things. One, they are ill paid. Two, many of them are now paid less than the tech- nicians, the machine-minders, who are working alongside them.
The thing that sparked them off was the knowledge that the phototelegraphists had just completed negotiations giving them an overall wage of £41 per week (thirty-five hours if they were lucky; forty-five hours if they're not; extra hours to be compensated for by time off in lieu). In Manchester, the Daily Mirror editorial staff are working on a minimum of £29 per week, with an average of about £36. They do not get overtime; in theory they get time off in lieu; in practice they don't.
It is not as though the Daily Mirror is losing money. They are £2 million up on the first six months of this year compared with last. Adver- tising, in common with most papers, is flooding in. They are even talking about a colour maga- zine (with assured advertising, of course).
The management of the Daily Mirror do not appear keen to talk to the journalistic staff. At .7 p.m. on Monday last no IPC director was .available. Nearly four hours later Percy Roberts, the managing director of the we News- paper Division, said he couldn't discuss the dispute because he was busy with the NGA, a technicians' union. He later promised that a director would come up, but only to listen, not to negotiate.
At 11 p.m. the strike started. By midday on Tuesday there still had been no communication from the management. Ken Morgan from the NUJ arrived. Ai first lie was angry, but ultimately came round to the 'chapel' belief that a house agreement was the right thing -to work for. Around tea-time Percy Roberts rang up to say that there could be talks but no negotiations. The journalists therefore voted to continue their strike. By 8.30 that night the chapel was talking to Percy Roberts again; they spent forty-five minutes arguing whether 'recognise,' `acknowledge,' or 'accept' was the word to use about the union's right to negotiate. At lunch- time Wednesday, 'accept' was accepted. The strike was over.
By the time you read this negotiations may be over, too. But 'one or two little things niggle away. Why, for instance, did the Daily Express not mention the strike, at least not in any edition I read? And why did a large pr6portion of the senior section of its staff, out of the blue, get letters promising them merit awards this week as ever was? Come to that, why did the Daily Mail announce the closure of its Scottish edition this very week? Were these part of a NPA policy to weaken the bargaining poition of the boys of the Daily Mirror? I wouldn't know; but I do know what I think. And what I think doesn't reflect too highly on the NPA.
'He says he doesn't want to be a student, he wants to be a policeman!'
On the other hand, it doesn't reflect too highly on the NW. For years the NUI'S position has been eroded away by the tactics of the techni. cians' unions; having accumulated a large rule. book, they have been adept at selling part of it under the guise of productivity agreements. Reporters, who don't get overtime, and have few restrictive practices, have no such rule- book to sell; they can only offer flexibility instead of productivity, which doesn't sound as good, but is. And they have been members of a union which, for that and other reasons, has been pitifully weak compared with the tech. nicians' unions, and which the various manage. ments have felt they could ignore with a degree of impunity.
But not any more. The Sun was the first paper to follow the Daily Mirror, and they got a promise of a house agreement , pretty damn quick. Then came the Manchester Evening News. Now the northern Daily Mail is after a house agreement too. Fleet Street is about to wake up.
And not before time. It is two years since Mr Cecil King, in his own laconic way, announced that the rewards of the editorial side of journalism were 'not glittering.' In fact, these days they are distinctly dull. I am glad that at last the people concerned are beginning to realise it. For it may impress on the Nei that newspapers are about the words which are written by the editorial staff. That's why people buy papers, and for no other reason. Every. thing else is, or should be, designed to support the writing side. It's a simple enough thesis, but just in case they've overlooked it, I recommend the Newspaper Publishers' Association to read Harry Whewell's column in the Guardian last Saturday. The title is 'Forgetting what its al about' and it makes the point better than I could do if I went on for another thousand words. Which is reason enough to stop.
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