State of the union

Abstract

Gall examines the resurgence of the National Union of Journalists as a power in the media industries and concludes that despite progress having been made on behalf of members, there is still a long way to go: "Successes against trenchant opposition should not preclude cognisance that in many companies the NUJ has either not regained recognition or has not, to date, even tried to do so. In the provinces, most of Northcliffe's operations have yet to witness NUJ activity and in Newquest's Warrington centre, a chapel has only just reformed. It is also worth recalling that following the termination of the Newspaper Society/NUJ provincial industry-wide agreement in 1987, only 120 out of 249 chapels gained "house agreements" by the following year. The next year the number of chapels that maintained such agreements dropped further. Thus, even if the NUJ regained all the recognition agreements it lost in the 1990s, the provincial sector would still remain only partial unionised."