Gaps unfilled
Sir: As Richard Ingrams says (6 May), there were a lot of gaps in the TV programme dealing with the journalists' strike at the Northamptonshire Evening Telegraph last year. But your critic has filled the gaps with the wrong facts: 1. The management of Northamptonshire Newspapers did not concede a closed shop to the NUJ, in order to end the strike. No closed shop agreement With journalists exists within any of our newspapers. However, the NUJ has been able to maintain 100 per cent membership within the Northamptonshire Evening Telegraph and our sister paper, the Market Harborough Mail.
2. During the late dispute, members of the National Graphical Association were not instructed to join the strike, which is Presumably why they stayed at work (along with all other trade unionists in the plant).
. 3. When 'Inside Story' was being filmed, management colleagues and I talked freely to the BBC cameras, and gave the TV crews access to all our discussions — on the grounds that we had absolutely nothing to hide. The absence 0..f a company viewpoint in the completed tihn was the producer's decision, rather than ours.
'John Ryan Managing Director, Northamptonshire Newspapers Ltd., Kettering, Northants
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