Annual Delegate Meeting 2008

Many of the motions proposed by London Freelance Branch were passed by the NUJ's Annual Delegate meeting (ADM, or conference) in a more or less recognisable form.  Many proposals, from other parts of the union, aimed at cutting the union's costs, but which would have had implications for union democracy were seen off, or dropped by those that had proposed the before they came up for discussion. There were some unusually lively debates and controversies along the way.

The Journalist

There was a long queue of speakers lining up to speak against another proposed cost-cutting measure - making the NUJ magazine the Journalist routinely online-only (Motions 71-74). Guy Smallman reminded ADM just how expensive it would be to pay all photographers for permanently archived online usage of his images in the Journalist according the recommended Freelance Fees Guide rates. Journalist editor Tim Gopsill clarified that the Journalist only pays freelances for contributions. Freelance editor Mike Holderness pointed out that after 12 years' effort London Freelance Branch has working email addresses for only 54 per cent of its members, and if the proportion the NUJ has nationally is anything like this, many members will be "disenfranchised" by a move to an online only Journalist. It looks for the moment as if the experiment of putting the Journalist online only for the April issue will remain a one-off.

Belt-tightening

A plan to reduce the size of the delegation that each union branch could send to ADM (Motion 3) was also seen off. The union's day-to-day decision-making body, the National Executive Committe (NEC), withdrew a lot of its belt-tightening proposals, including a £25 annual fee for retired members (Motion 10), who currently don't pay fees, and who sustain many small branches by acting as its officers.  In an agreement reached with the NUJ's charity NUJ Extra, the charity's trustees agree to waive the NUJ's contribution this year, with triggers in place that would induce review of funding if reserves go below a certain level.

Israel boycott

A controversial mostion passed at ADM 2007 called for discussion of a boycott of Israel - but wasn't acted on, after the Trades Union Congress declined a request to call for boycott made to it by the NUJ, as instructed in the original motion. The motion was formally overturned at ADM 2008 by an LFB motion (Motion 40). The motion before Conference rejected the accusations of anti-semitism and the more virulent abuse thrown at the union at the time.

The LFB motion was in response to "health and safety concerns of workers in the region," said Branch Vice-Chair Dave Rotchelle. LFB members who report from Israel had let it be known after the ADM 2007 boycott resolution that they felt it compromised their safety and their credibility as journalists. "Vote with your conscience," Rotchelle told ADM, and it did, and overturned the boycott. The Press Gazette praised the balanced way LFB put their case.

LFB immediately followed the motion on Israel with a package of practical solidarity measures to help Palestinean journalists (Motion 42). LFB Committee's Guy Smallman said the motion was a vote of thanks to Palestinean journalists in exile in Lebanon, who "kept me alive and kept me safe". The motion passed, with speeches reminding delegates that Palestinean journalists have to deal not just with the Isreali military but with Palestinean armed groups who want to get in the way of their reporting. South Yorkshire Branch encouraged NUJ members to go with delegations to Palestine.

Photographing children

There was a lively debate on the clause in the union's Code of Practice on taking photographs of children, with many contributions from freelance photographers (Motion 12).  Nigel Dickinson of  Paris Branch says he's often out photographing child street gangs, child sex workers or child drug addicts, where there's no way he can seek the permission of an "adult guardian," as the code currently stipulates. LFB photographer Guy Smallman pointed out that somebody else publishes a photographer's work: the decision on whether and how to publish is out of the photographers' hands. There will be more consultation on the code of practice and it will come back at next year's ADM, one at which rule changes can be voted.

The Drogheda Independent agreement - writers taking photos

The implications of the agreement between the NUJ and the Irish local newspaper the Drogheda Independent  also provoked lively debate (Motions 115-118) The agreement was a good one on many counts, but one controversial clause states that there will be no restriction on the utilisation of equipment or software. All equipment - including cameras used by reporters on assignment - will be operated without further claim by the staff". Chris Wheal of NUJ Training Committee and the welfare fund NUJ Extra said he'd visited Drogheda to find out the facts for himself. He had talked to the Mother of Chapel (chair of the union organisation at the title) at the Drogheda Independent. No cameras had been bought yet for staff; no writers had yet been asked to take photos; a freelance photographer was still working at the paper five days a week, and another at weekends.

Several delegates were concerned that the union didn't end up being held a hostage to fortune by deals like the one in Drogheda. The Emergency Committee (IEC) - which had endorsed the Drogheda deal - was called to account, but a motion calling for the resignation of it members fell after those who had originally supported it said they would vote against it. Some freelance photographers spoke against the Drogheda deal at ADM. Bristol freelance Simon Chapman said he'd heard that the freelance photographers at Drogheda were on "a very low rate", while photographer Nigel Dickinson of Paris Branch said that photographers were leaving the union over the issue.

Freedom of Information

The LFB's own Heather Brooke thanked the NUJ for its support, after her Freedom of Information Act (FOIA - Motion 99) application on MPs' expenses on their second homes had finally produced a result for her during the conference, with details on how much John Prescott spent on food and how much Tony Blair spent on a TV licence.

Meanwhile in Ireland, journalists are fighting an attempt to water down freedom of information with the Freedom of Information Act (Amendment) 2003. NUJ Irish Secretary Seamus Dooley said that "the Irish government wants FOIA like it wants bubonic plague," while the Northern Ireland Assembly is attempting to water down its FOIA.

Virtual meetings - Continental freelances

Freelances outside the UK represented by the Continental European Council (CEC) won their seven-year battle to allow "virtual meetings" of Branches with the same status as face-to-face meetings. While NUJ freelances in small countries like Holland and Belgium are concentrated around the capitals and can meet face-to-face, Paris Branch's 200 freelances are all over France, and Spain's NUJ freelances are even more scattered. Guy Thornton and Leigh Philips of the CEC told me they hope "virtual meetings" can build branches to the point where face-to-face meetings are possible. The Freelance hopes to have a more detailed article on this soon.

Less-dreadful ADMs

A Freelance Industrial Council (FIC)  motion (Motion 5) proposed setting up a working party to come before the next ADM with ideas on how the format of ADM could be changed (for example shortened) so as to make it more democratic and less unbearably tedious. I'm not sure I followed exactly what happened, but from where I was sitting, it looks like it was passed in a form so massively amended as to be barely recognisable. There will be a review of how we do ADMs, but this will be subsumed within the existing committee on structure, and with a less urgent timetable than the original motion proposed. Contact the structure review by email: structure@nuj.org.uk

Ireland to rejoin Commonwealth - not!

As it turned out, ADM 2008 was much more bearable and less soporific than I had expected, and was at times even gripping. A case in point was the debate on London Central Branch's motion on Ireland rejoining the Commonwealth. The term "Commonwealth" didn't go down to well with many present, the name being associated with Oliver Cromwell's regime and its ethnic cleansing of Ireland in the 1650s. Irish Secretary Seamus Dooley responded with a stirring rendition of Republican hymn The Captains and the Kings in answer to the proposal, which unsurprisingly fell.

Belfast

Outside the conference chamber, there was a reception to remember Martin O'Hagan, the Belfast Sunday World journalist murdered by paramilitaries in September 2001, and whose killers yet to be brought to justice.  A colleague of Martin's showed some of the letters containing death threats that still arrive on the desks of Sunday World journalists. Investigative journalism seemed, from my short visit to Northern Ireland, to be in a more vigorous state than elsewhere in the in the UK, with the "unashamedly tabloid" Sunday World running numerous investigative stories in a single issue, and Northern Ireland TV channels running trailers for several long investigative political documentaries to be run during the next week. Recent history means a more politically engaged population, and a late night political discussion programme could refer to clauses 5 and 6 of the Good Friday Agreement' safe in the knowledge that the audience knew what they were talking about.

The memorial to Martin O'Hagan took place in the wonderful Linen Hall Library, whose "political collection" houses over 400,000 items of documents and memorabilia from the Troubles going back to 1968. Its chief librarian, John Grey, told me that the pride of their collection, thousands of bound and neatly organised press cuttings assembled by the Northern Ireland Office (NOI) , came their way when they found the NOI throwing them all into skips in 1981. There are 67 thick files of press cuttings on the IRA alone.

© Matt Salusbury