NUJ strike planned at Morning Star
Posted on Wednesday 9 June, 2010
Filed Under The left
UPDATE: Sunday’s threatened stoppage is now off, after Morning Star management agreed to return to the negotiating table. Watch out for further developments.
IMAGINE how your workplace union branch would function if the management controlled a block vote of almost half the membership through the mechanism of democratic centralism.
That’s the situation facing National Union of Journalists activists at the Morning Star. The chapel has voted by 11-10 to go on strike over pay and conditions, and a walkout is scheduled for this Sunday, I am told. Unlike similar stand-offs in recent years, the stoppage looks likely to happen.
Interestingly, the ballot represents virtually a straight split between the majority, made up of those who are not in the Communist Party of Britain, and the minority, made up of those who are, and thus bound to follow the party line. Leninist discipline, I think we used to call it.
Tensions have not been eased by a document circulated at the annual general meetings of the People’s Press Printing Society Ltd, which took place in Birmingham, Glasgow, Leeds, Cardiff and London earlier this month.
The management committee report claims, in vintage Stalinist parlance reminiscent of a Comintern denunciation against a particularly over-enthusiastic section:
The actions of those members of the NUJ chapel who voted to gamble with the livelihoods of everyone at the paper are to be condemned as irresponsible and adventurist.
It might as well have gone the whole hog and branded them ‘Trotskyite wreckers and splitters’ while it was about it.
Just how serious things have become is made plain in an addendum titled ‘Between a Rock and a Hard Place – Morning Star at Risk’, which was originally circulated to trade union general secretaries:
The PPPS management committee is firmly resolved to make no enhanced offers to the NUJ. We cannot afford to do so … This decision was taken in full cognisance of the fact that this may lead to cessation of production …
Depending on how long the dispute lasts, the PPPS would probably very soon become insolvent. Insolvency would mean PPPS going into administration, with a risk of its ultimate liquidation.
Are management bluffing? I guess we’ll find out at the weekend. I do appreciate the point that the publication is unlike any other national daily, in that it seeks to promote the views of as broad a cross-section of the left as meets with the approval of the CPB, and to do so on an extremely minimal budget.
It is also undeniably much improved since its relaunch, and is now taking contributions from Socialist Workers’ Party and Green Party members, over and above the perennial flood of extremely dull trade union press releases and rehashed wire copy.
But that does not absolve the PPPS from its responsibility to pay a living wage. As an NUJ member myself, the chapel majority have my full support.
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34 Responses to “NUJ strike planned at Morning Star”
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Oh my giddy aunt, I haven’t laughed so much since that mouthy Trot-Jock put on a cat’s suit and crawled over to rub himself against Rula Lenska’s legs! Honestly, if I had known that Left-wing politics was this much fun I would have signed on years ago. You’ll be telling me next that that fat black clown who sends her kid to a public school is standing for leadership of the Labour party – oh, she is – then for God’s sake don’t tell Edgar, he’ll explode all over the place – very messy!
David,
My tea is all over the computer screen!
Dave. In such a small workplace especially the Morning Star I would have thought the books and state of finance would be available for all to see. I hope they do not put themselves out of a job. David Duff. Gorgeous is a Jock but never ever a Trot. Real Trots have no truck with religion.
Tell me Mr Duff, which are meant to be insults, fat, black or clown? Or all three?
we should call for workers’ control at the Morning Star
I’ll say what I said the last time, where do they expect the money to come from? The Morning Star pays no shareholder dividends, it’s barely kept afloat as it is. If they have an alternative plan as to the allocation of funds or as a way of increasing funds why have we not heard it?
David Duff. What is the problem with being fat and black. Why even mention it. The elected Mayor of London was dubbed a clown. Boris is also on the heavy side but he is white so that makes it alright.
Whatever happened to Anita Halpin’s millions? I think it’s time for a generous gesture on her part.
“which are meant to be insults, fat, black or clown?”
None of them, Doug, the first two are adjectives and accurate as far as I can tell, and the last is a simile not an insult, after all, I’m no ‘clownist’!
And Jimmy, there’s nothing wrong with any of them, although the latter might be a difficulty if she was elected leader of the Labour party. (On second thoughts, we could all do with the laughs!)
Here’s the motion NUJ London Central Branch approved at its meeting last night:
This branch notes the Morning Star chapel is engaged in an increasingly bitter pay dispute;
expresses concern at the dire state of industrial relations at the paper, in stark contradiction with management’s stated principles of support for workers in struggle;
condemns management for its inflammatory report to the PPPS co-operative that owns the paper stating that chapel members in favour of industrial action are to be “condemned as irresponsible and adventurist” and insists that such statements only threaten to escalate the dispute;
reaffirms total support for chapel members’ reasonable demands of the same pay rise as their colleagues in Unite and the right to negotiate their own wages for 2011 and 2012;
welcomes management’s recent movement — prompting the chapel to postpone last Sunday’s strike action — on compensation for antisocial working, despite management’s refusal to even discuss the issue during eight months of negotiations;
thanks the General Secretary and Deputy General Secretary for bringing management to the negotiating table and for their efforts to unite the chapel behind effective industrial action;
expresses complete confidence in chapel officials, who have had to operate under exceptionally difficult circumstances;
notes that the union announced today the chapel’s resounding rejection of management’s new offer, which is vaguely defined and falls short of the chapel’s reasonable demands, in a consultative email ballot;
and pledges to back this Sunday’s planned strike action by the chapel.
Wouldn’t David Duff be far happier if he crawled over to one of the many far right blogs on the Internet, instead of contaminating this one?
Since he has proven abundantly that he is nothing to contribute to any intelligent political debate, perhaps Dave Osler might think about withholding further hospitality from this racist jerk.
“Though Marx said “From each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs”, electoral Commission records show the Halpin family has since given just £9,310 to the Communist Party of Britain. As much as half the £20m is thought to have gone to her expensive New York lawyer, David Rowland, and to the auction house Christie’s. Halpin, 64 this year, is known to enjoy good red wine ? nothing’s too good for the workers ? but perhaps the remainder went on his’n'hers tanks.
Peace, Land and Bread doesn’t come cheap, as journalists at the Communist Party-owned Morning Star will testify, not exactly being overburdened with cash.
Ms Halpin declined to speak to Pandora last night, maintaining her policy of silence on the issue. Hopefully she will not become a figure of fun.”
http://news.independentminds.livejournal.com/4826706.html
When Marx said “From each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs” it was in the context of society having to meet a certain productive, progressed level of development in order that it may be achieved. Pedantic maybe, but such misquotes have led to war! Metaphorically speaking.
P.S. Well said Jimmy!
I believe the *point* of the article was to suggest that the Halpin family have been less than generous in their donations to the CPB, given 1) their supposed political commitments 2) their means, etc
David Duff. There was no need to mention the colour of a person or their personal appearance. Absolutely no relevance to that at all. Clown is OK. I get called lots of things but do not care. The woman has been elected again by her constituents inspite of her previous indiscretion over the private school thing. I have to assume she must be doing a reasonable job. In any case she has no chance of being Labour Leader. This old fellah will be voting for young Andy.
SORRY, ENTIRELY BY MISTAKE, WE PLACED OUR COMMENTS ABOUT THE CONFLICT BETWEEN THE CPB DOMINATED MORNING STAR AND THE NUJ, IN THE WRONG BLOG BY MISTAKE.
So, here we go again…
We are long standing Morning Star readers and supporters from Manchester.
There have been some improvements in our paper recently, but it is dominated by the backwards, revisionist CPB clique; we would like to see less sports and TV and more regional, industrial and international reporting.
We would like to see some Marxist education in the paper.
And crucially, the Labour Party is now a spent force, but the CPB still think they can reclaim it.
If the conflict between the NUJ Chapel and the CPB led Peoples Press Printing Society does come to a strike which could destroy our paper after 80 years, we think the loyal Morning Star readers and supporters across the country should have a say.
Not just the few mainly loyal CPB supporters who recently attended the stage managed and fixed AGM’s.
We think it encumbent on Tony Briscoe (CPB fixer) and PPPS Secretary to reconvene a special PPPS AGM and invite all shareholders (thousands of individuals, unions and progressive bodies) to sort this matter out in a comradely way.
We will be looking at the rules and will write to Briscoe suggesting such a course of action.
Yours Fraternally, Manchester Morning Star readers and suporters.
Quite right, Jimmy, and I stand shamed and corrected by you. She is, after all, a lady, or at least a gentleman should always assume it until proven otherwise, and my rudery, even if accurate, was out of order. I apologise unreservedly.
(Dammit, I swear there’s a Devil in this keyboard!)
David Duff. Oh dear David. ‘even if accurate’. But you have eaten humble for a while! I had an uncle called Duff. He was a World War 1 veteren. Jings Crivens Help Ma Boab we could be fuckin related. But I am sure you are not a real DUFF.
Jimmy, ‘I’ll be puttin’ ma heed in with ma bonnet on’ if you suggest I’m not a Duff through and through. Not only that, I’m a true-born bastard Duff – Dad was a ‘Canuck’ and did a runner, the swift wee bastard!
Enough of this faux-Jockery. If you had an uncle in WWI that must make you as old as me – dread thought!
David Duff. My uncle Wullie Duff (1897) Army Service Corp. Died late fifties, lung cancer because of all the fags and gin issued to pacify them. He was a long distance lorry driver. So maybe he met yer maw and shagged her then fucked aff. Typical Jock Bastard.
Who on earth told your contributor that George Galloway is some kind of “Trot”? Gorgeous Georgie may have used the dubiously “Trotskyist” SWP as errand lads till he lost patience with their little games, and he certainly had them defending his antics in the Big Brother House.
But he has long preferred working with Stals when he could, and was not long ago promising a book on Spain that would put Ken Loach and the “Trots” in their place, by taking a straight Stalinist line. What’s more I believe he has been not without supporters in Morning Star-CPB circles, and has been helped by allies on the CPB wing of the Stop the War Coalition.
Getting back to the Morning Star, the national conference of Trades Union councils recently in Blackpool passed a resolution referring inter alia to “our paper, the Morning Star”. I’d questioned this description when the resolution was being submitted, and at conference it was challenged by a delegate who happens to be a member of the NUJ. But a Leicestershire delegate cited her membership of the People’s Press Publishing Society as though that represented all of us, and most delegates were inclined to see the Star as “ours” by contrast to the other daily papers which are plainly their’s, the bosses’, that is.
To be fair the Star is not as tightly Stalinist run as it used to be, a friend of mine had an article commissioned for Socialist Worker then rejected because some people in the SWP didn’t think he was “a suitable person to be writing in our paper”, only to find the article cheerfully published by the Morning Star.
Besides the PPS and wealthy individuals, the Star also counts on some unions to buy bulk copies, and that too is a source of influence. But from what I’ve seen of NUJ leaders they are not unsympathetic to the Star politically, and value it as an asset, so I don’t think they would call a strike lightly. Whatever the issues involved, there’s really no reason for anyone from the People’s Press Publishing Society or Uncle Joe’s Trot-bashing team to start sounding off like a cross between Vyshinsky and Willie Walsh.
To those who are asking where the money is, there’s a very simple answer – what money? This dispute isn’t about money, it’s about trade union principles. Morning Star management have already made a deal with Unite and the NUJ Chapel would be happy to agree the same figure. However, the Unite deal is a three-year deal and the NUJ doesn’t agree with multi-year deals – trade unions should have the right to negotiate pay annually. That’s the issue in dispute (there was also an issue about compensation for working on Sundays and Bank Holidays, but management conceded that issue this week). The underlying isssue is that the Morning Star management do not like having to negotiate with a strong and forceful NUJ Chapel, condemning their militancy while cheering on militancy elsewhere in the trade union movement.
DeLong. Three year deals are the norm now in Scottish Local Gov. I do not think a good acceptable long term deal should be regected because of principle. It can help stabilise a company and the workers can also plan ahead. Of course inflation can go wonky or prices rise during the term. In this event the workers can have it written in that they have a right to renegotiate.
Sorry, Mr. Pottins, if my knowledge of the nomenclature of the sub-sects of Left wing politics was not up to scratch. I remain as bemused by it as I was in watching the hissy-fit spat in the Python film between the Judean Peoples’ Revolutionary Front, and the Front for the Judean Peoples’ Revolution – and I’ve almost certainly got those names wrong, too!
Jimmy: “Scottish Local Government”, what a dread, drear wasteland of the human spirit that summons up.
Duff,
They are not the sub sects but the higher level sects. These higher level sects each have sub sects and these sub sects each have more sub sects. Think of the Pyramids covered with trees!
Mervyn – since you clearly don’t actually want a national daily newspaper, I’m sure you could find a nice little news sheet to read, with wall-to-wall masturbation masquerading as politics.
Or you could raise your editorial concerns at the regional AGM – you know, the one you have every year in Manchester; or even via any of the Star supporters’ groups.
As to some of the other comments here: the dispute is about a pay claim. Blimey – we’d have fallen down in shock if the Star‘s management pre-1998 had offered us anything, never mind the current offer. But it appears that some of the staff have elected to decided to take action, partly on the grounds of what they appear to believe a private individual supporter of the Star should cough up. Not a proprietor – a private individual and one shareholder of many. And a number of posters here seem to take the same view.
It’s an original approach to industrial relations.
The Morning Star over the last couple of years has improved. There are good reports on industrial and union issues. It has an excellent allotment column by comrade Mat Coward. There are some very thin comment-articles, and some fairly childish (even by Blog standards) opinions. But other times they have very good material, such as Simon’s stuff on London poverty etc.
When they have had the time the write some interesting stuff – often the case for another non-CPB member who writes for them, Jim Jepps. Sadly otherimes this is not the case. Jim’s article on the French regional elections looked as if had been cut and pasted from the world-famous Tendance Coatesy site.
Politically I have found it strange that there are journalists there who describe themselves as anarcho-syndicalists. I asked one how he managed to work with people who admired North Korea (they still publish stuff in that vein). He seemed to think that they were fading away.
One can see from this – and I’m sure they’re others here who know a lot more than we provincials do – that apart from their pay and conditions there are plenty of potential flash points there
Thanks, Edgar, you mean as in:
‘Big fleas have little fleas upon their back to bite them, and little fleas have lesser fleas and so ad infinitum’.
Yes, I see what you mean!
Latest breaking news: strike’s been postponed till June 20 to give management a little more time to come to their senses…
Mervyn, as a fellow PPPS shareholder I agree we must have a special meeting to discuss this. At the London leg of the AGM, several people said it wasn’t right for management to abuse their position in the way they did without giving the chapel any space to make their case.
But what was more shocking was that, after management had given their nasty report and shareholders had asked their questions, the platform refused to answer any of the questions and instead moved straight to the vote! Unconstitutional? I don’t know, but it was very antidemocratic, not to mention cowardly.
What are these so called ‘strikers’ up to? They are mere proxies for their neo-conservative pay-masters in Washington and Whitehall. Abject liars and counter-revolutionaries. Mercenary traitors; they are the lowest form of political life.
Trade union consciousness is no longer meaningful in the workers’ state, and it is equally redundant in the proletarian democracy that is the Morning Star!
THE LATEST FROM LONGSTANDING MANCHESTER MORNING STAR READERS AND SUPPORTERS. 16/6/2010, 00.15.
A BRIGHT SOCIALIST/COMMUNIST FUTURE FOR OUR MORNING STAR.
It looks like there will soon be a strike at the Morning Star, very unfortunately, which could lead to the liquidation of our working class daily after 80 years of more or less constant production.
The dispute is about a wage claim the Management of the PPPS (owners of the co operative society which publishes our paper) have with the NUJ Chapel.
As long standing Morning Star readers and supporters, we know that sales of approximately 10,000 a day are not enough for our paper to break even.
Our paper runs at a loss and only survives because of the magnificent support it receives from readers and supporters through the Fighting Fund, legacies, donations and financial support from unions such as UNITE, FBU, RMT, the POA, the Durham Miners and many hundreds of union branches and progressive organisations.
To cut a long story short, the Management of the PPPS dominated by the CPB clique, have for many years prevented the flourishing of democracy at PPPS AGM’s, by dictatorially operating a Management recommended list of which candidates to support for the Management and which resolutions to support at the AGM’s.
At present the AGM’s are poorly attended by mainly CPB supporters and Left Labourites.
In a very sectarian and undemocratic fashion the Management of the PPPS only tends to support weak, wishy washy, liberal resolutions from the CPB and support CPB nominated people for the Management.
All other candidates and resolutions are dismissed each year.
If our paper is going to develop and grow the undemocratic actions of the CPB clique will have to stop.
We are currently seeking legal advice about the legality of the PPPS Management’s recommended list.
We think the PPPS Secretary should convene a Special AGM in accordance with PPPS Rules and invite all current individuals, trade unions and progressive organisations who are shareholders, by post, to such a Special AGM.
In order to try to resolve the planned industrial action and reach a settlement without a strike, and, to democratise the Society.
If it is too late to prevent a crippling strike, the Special AGM should still go ahead and decide to abolish the CPB’s dictatorial recommended list.
We will also need to discuss ways to drastically increase sales.
We live in a monopoly capitalist/imperialist country and working class and oppressed people need a daily voice.
We think there should be a lot less bourgeois TV and sport in our paper and more industrial, regional and international reporting from a socialist/communist perspective.
There should be regular Marxist education which refers to the basics but is bang up to date. And more letters.
In essence: we need a dialectical unity of theory and practice and we need to get rid of revisionism and tailism (meekly tailing behind the class enemy “Labour” Party).
We want our paper to appeal to the working class and the masses and give them hope in a socialist/communist future.
It can and will be done.
We will update this site with developments.
What do contributors think?
Yours Fraternally,
Mervyn Drage,
Manchester Morning Star readers and supporters.
What a surprise! Stalinists acting like Stalinists. Whatever next?
Drage. The sooner the Morning Star goes the better for democracy.