Bookbuyer's
Bookend
The splitting of the NUJ's book and magazine branch into two autonomous halves marks another significant step forward in the union's invasion of publishing privacy. Up until last month the book section had no official status within the National Union of Journalists and acted mainly as a debating forum and as what one member optimistically described as a ginger group. Now it is a branch in its own right and with a current membership of over 800 souls (half of them male souls) it is the fifth largest component in the NUJ machine.
Those senior publishing citizens who imagined union membership to be synonymous with minority dissidence will no doubt be surprised by the sudden strength of the opposition. From its first tentative inroads into such companies as Hamlyn and Marshall Cavendish — who did after all have strong magazine connections — the NUJ's book section has grown within a very few years to a membership which represents around one fifth of all eligible editorial and production staff. In the past twelve months the number has risen from 685 to 814, and the quantity of negotiating chapels from fourteen to twenty-plus. At the same time rival unions like ASTMS, NGA and SLADE have been marching on apace.
Although Bookbuyer has never made any secret of his antipathy towards hysterical union activists in publishing — one of these days he will name them — there seems little doubt that the ever-growing union membership will help concentrate the employer's mind wonderfully. This can only be to the good. For too long now certain of the corporations have shown themselves generous to a fault in rewarding senior incompetence with extended periods of leave and cheques the size of a pools win, while at the same time turning a deaf ear to the pleas of the lower paid. That kind of cynicism, and the redundancies which sometimes result from the most staggering senior stupidity, can have done nothing to show that unions are not sometimes necessary.
But the real villains, Bookbuyer suspects, are those traditional imprints who still trade on the assumption that the main reward in publishing is to be in publishing. It is precisely that attitude which has helped breed and preserve the dozens of waffling dilettantes who often find their way into the Society of Young Publishers and who have as much interest in basic business professionalism as Mr Pickwick.
If, by force of numbers, the NUJ can prick a few sloppy consciences and stimulate a little lucid thinking on the part of publishing employers, then they will be performing a useful service both for themselves and for the efficiency of the industry. But if any chapel tries to thump the negotiating table without detailed and reliable information on the company's affairs and without a proper respect for the Industrial Relations Act (which, whether they like it or not, is law) then they should not be surprised if the employer decides to send them packing.
So the 0000 Booker Prize for Fiction has gone to J. G. Farrell's The Seige of Krishnapur (Weidenfeld), a choice which, as Bookbuyer indicated three weeks ago, will earn more than one plaudit from the ranks of Bloomsbury's bookmen.
Among the several pearls of wisdom in an ungracious acceptance speech, the winner suggested that miners should be better paid than company chairmen, Booker McConnell's boss presumably included. Farrell's all right. He's got his money. But like last year's winner John Berger he was doing his best to ensure that future authors don't. Booker McConnell seem to be reasonable men but they must be getting a little tired of having their sponsored prize thrown back in their face. Bookbuyer believes they are mature enough to rise above such behaviour, and will renew their sponsorship of the prize when the seven-year guarantee expires in 1975. Weidenfeld authors permitting.
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