A previous blog highlighted my trip to Westminster to give evidence to the Scottish Affairs Committee. Well the final report has been produced and by and large the MPs have captured the concerns about the current poor state of affairs in our industry.
It gets off to a good start with the title "Crisis in the Scottish Press Industry", although I have been searching for a word a bit stronger than crisis. This near as dammit verbatim inquiry should be bed-time reading for everyone working in Scottish newspapers and a must for media/journalist students looking to join the sinking ship.
Taking evidence from the union (NUJ and STUC) side, practising media academics and the employers in the form of managing directors (Blott. Hollinshead, Johnston), an editor (John McLellan) and the influential Jim Raeburn, director of the Scottish Daily Newspaper Society the report makes interesting reading.
No honestly.
Well I thought so anyway.
Even if you just look at the conclusions...
To be fair the MPs (well most of them) appear to have grasped the serious situation and the select committee report warns of the risks to the future of the Scottish Press industry. It says that restructuring and stress in the workplace risks diminishing the quality and independence of the press and calls on managements of all Scottish newspaper groups should take cognisance of the NUJ stress audits and respond with an action plan.
Highlighting the strategy of restructuring by merging titles as "often at great cost to staff" the committee chair Mohammed Sarwar MP said:"...the evidence my committee has heard during this inquiry has raised significant questions and we urge the Scottish and UK governments to do everything in their power to safeguard the future of the industry."
While much of the report covers important issues of competition and falling revenues there are also a number of little gems hidden within. For example an English Tory MP who had been drafted onto the committee for lack of Scottish Conservative honourable members, fed the management team a nice little Thatcherite starter for ten. He suggested they might want to whinge about spending money and time jumping through employment law hoops, hindering them in their search for bigger profits. He sympathised with them for having to pay redundancy deals and stick to notice periods and other such obstacles and barriers to running an efficient business. Unfortunately Tim Blott couldn't resist agreeing totally with the eejit, while to his great credit Michael Johnston disagreed and argued the merits of working with the unions.
This little segment provides us with an insight of what is in store if the Tories get back into power.
Check it out, it is worth a quick read just to imagine the discomfort of certain individuals under scrutiny. It is a pity they never took Donald Martin with them, just to raise our entertainment value.
Friday 7 August 2009
Scottish affairs...
Apologies for the delay in posting this blog but our site has been under cyberattack for sometime with lots of viruses being sent by some eejit trying to stop our messages of wisdom to the mediaworld.
Since the last posting our team at Union Chambers have been a bit busy. The weather has picked up over the last month but we spent some considerable time trying to keep warm and looking positively on the noise pollution caused by excessive horn honking in support of NUJ pickets along Central Quay.
The dispute was settled with some success although a number of chapel members confused officials with their choice of certain terminology with comments including "capitulation" being bandied about. This was used in connection with negotiations which delivered production staff improved conditions of a four-day week averaging 35 hours. Yes, people are not happy at the seven day operation and the changes are disruptive, particularly having to work the odd Saturday is a pain, however things would have been much worse if we hadn't taken action.
We also saved a stack of jobs, with some popular individuals returning to work after being selected for compulsory redundancy. We now need to monitor the new structure and ensure conditions are acceptable, that starts with holding them to the return to work agreement which is already fraying around the edges, specifically in relation to freelance cover.
Since the last posting our team at Union Chambers have been a bit busy. The weather has picked up over the last month but we spent some considerable time trying to keep warm and looking positively on the noise pollution caused by excessive horn honking in support of NUJ pickets along Central Quay.
The dispute was settled with some success although a number of chapel members confused officials with their choice of certain terminology with comments including "capitulation" being bandied about. This was used in connection with negotiations which delivered production staff improved conditions of a four-day week averaging 35 hours. Yes, people are not happy at the seven day operation and the changes are disruptive, particularly having to work the odd Saturday is a pain, however things would have been much worse if we hadn't taken action.
We also saved a stack of jobs, with some popular individuals returning to work after being selected for compulsory redundancy. We now need to monitor the new structure and ensure conditions are acceptable, that starts with holding them to the return to work agreement which is already fraying around the edges, specifically in relation to freelance cover.
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