Unionise now! If the union lets you
(Update: really helpful reply from Vice-President of the NUJ below)
I applied to become a member of the National Union Journalists (NUJ) a couple of weeks ago, as I’m quite getting into the idea of battering out my thoughts on political economy for a living. I’m also applying for a journalistic job, though I think it’s a long shot.
Today I got a letter from the NUJ:
Thank you for your application to join the NUJ. Unfortunately, you do not meet the main criteria as you are not earning from the work you do in the field of journalism.
Now, I’ll admit that this isn’t a totally unexpected reply. I had a hunch I might get turned down when I put a zero in the ‘How much do you earn?’ bit of the application form.
I am disappointed though, and I wonder what readers and fellow bloggers think.
I do understand that a union needs to have criteria for membership based around what the union does and the interests it represents, but shouldn’t there be a bit more flexibility in a work area where self-employment is significant, and where one of the challenges is to ensure that new journalists do get paid for their stuff rather than have to give it away free for ages before they get ‘a name’ and can start to charge?
Isn’t turning down the applications of me and others like me somewhat self-defeating in this respect, quite aside from not being a very good idea financially? I was after all offering to give them money every month. Isn’t there a whole area of union recruitment out there in the blogosphere, ready for the NUJ to tap, and which will strengthen the union overall?
I don’t know what the answers are. I’m just asking.
In the meantime, can someone give me some paid journalistic work, so I can join the NUJ. I’ll pay you back, honest.
So what does the NUJ do with unemployed journalists?
The spirit of the ‘craft union’ is still alive and well:
When I came into the print industry 25 years ago I had to go through all sorts of hoops to get an NGA card (although in fact the sector I worked in still considered themselves part of the pre-merger SLADE union – possibly the best TU name ever !)
Then in the early 90′s I saw the union refuse to admit ‘mac operators’ who were coming in to the industry and displacing former trades – then one day in the late 90′s we all woke up and saw that in the space of a decade we had gone from a pre-entry closed shop to an endangered species.
I suppose there needs to be some way to distinguish people who are serious journalists, with a real stake in what affects the industry in which they work by getting paid, with people who don’t have a real stake in the industry. That’s not to say that ambitions or plans to enter journalism don’t have any meaning – of course they do, and I’m sure the NUJ must do some things to encourage people to enter journalism, but at the same time they need to balance the interests of the journalists who are getting paid, and who will have the votes in whatever motions they try to pass.
Do you know what we should do though? Start a blogging trade union! Let’s see how the country survives for a week without any blog posts whatsoever! Muhahaha!
I suppose this also has implications for unionisation amongst the unemployed, and also around unpaid internships. Unions at the moment are struggling to relate to and engage with young people, it seems that not allowing intern journalists to join the union is missing a trick here. Unless they do offer some sort of deal for interns, or even student journalists.
Hi all,
I’m Vice President of the NUJ. The NUJ has a number of categories of membership and the full category requires that you earn at least 50% of your income from journalism. This is not designed to shut bloggers out, it is an old rule designed to stop moonlighters getting a press card. This remains an issue – people with full-time jobs who take a few photos or write up a report of a sports event and sell them to papers for next to nothing, undercutting professional journalists who rely on selling their material for a living.
However, we do also have Temporary Membership – designed for any “new entrant to journalism – or to a person returning to journalism – who proves he/she is seeking to establish or re-establish himself/herself as a full-time freelance journalist without any other full-time paid occupation.” It’s a lot cheaper than full membership and temporary members can have a press card.
We also have unemployed membership for existing members who are out of work and they do not have to pay subs – though they’re not entitled to have a press card. Finally (except for retired and asylum seeker members), we have Associate Membership for “any person who satisfies the NEC [union's National Executive] he or she is carrying out significant journalistic work and has a continuing commitment to journalism and trade unionism.” They are also not entitled to a press card – the NUJ is not in control of the rules relating to the Press Card, which is under the authority of the UK Press Card Authority – http://www.presscard.uk.com/ .
Further details are available from the union’s rule book – http://www.nuj.org.uk/innerPagenuj.html?docid=182 .
So, basically, any blogger who is making no money can either join as a temporary member – if they’re working towards becoming a fulltime journalist and do not have another full-time job – or an Associate Member if they have another full-time job (and, as a union, we would encourage anyone in such a position to join the appropriate union for that sector).
I’m sorry that this was not made clear to you when your application was responded to – I will ensure our communications are improved when we’re rejecting applications for specific kinds of membership. If you are interested in either Temporary or Associate membership, you can apply by simply writing the correct type of membership across the top of a regular application form.
If you want to meet up with me (if you’re in London), just send me an email or contact me on Facebook or Twitter (info on my blog – http://donnachadelong.info/about/ )
Donnacha
That’s really helpful. As I said above (which I’ll now edit with an update to reflect your contribution) I thought there might be more of a story than I was seeing, and you’ve now given it.
I’m grateful for your time. I hope also my raising the issue will enable you to rejig your responses to applications like mine, in a way that recognises the advent of bloggers-turned-journalists. It may also be you want to look at your standard application form, and take out the ‘has to be paid employment’ bit, and add a ‘temporary’ box. Alternatively there might be a different form to develop and put on the site alongside the student one. In the meantime I’ll just put temporary across the top of my re-application.
All in all, a successful conclusion
Well done, Donnacha! Just as an afternote the NUJ exists to protect the interests of journalists and an increasing problem is the number of people prepared to carry out UNPAID work for newspapers and broadcast media . This simply could not have hapened in the days when an NUJ card was a pre-requisite for working – it also is of course exploited by the bosses, and does undermine those of us who don’t see journalism as a hobby or something we can do for free but our basic livelihood – We charge the rate for the job and allowing anyone into full union membership- paid or unpaid – would undermine our position
The different types of NUJ membership does help us – and anyone hoping to start a career. But be warned it is increasingly difficult – most areas of regional journalism are being devastated
Susan
I think your ‘afternote’ is actually the most important bit – the need to protect the journalist workforce against the ‘intern’isation that is lots of people so desperate to get into journalism that they’ll do it for free for ages, meaning both that only those with what we used to call ‘independent means’ can get into journalism as well as it being used by press owners to drive down terms and conditions.
I think the temporary membership solution outlined by Donnacha is a really good way of working through this, in that it seeks to unionise those trying to get into journalism, whether from blogging or elsewhere, in a way that motivates them to get paid work (and therefore not undermine those already in). It’s clearly been well thought out in this respect by Donnacha, and I hope that the availability of such temporary membership might be more widely publicised (e.g. on the NUJ website) as well as reflected in the application forms, so that those left-leaning people of ‘independent means’ who are writing for free perhaps at least think through the ‘undercutting’ consequences of actions which they might choose to deplore in what they are writing.
I’ll admit I did one piece for free (currently my only published magazine piece) for Red Pepper, and that I’m in two minds about whether I did the right think by listening to their pleas of poverty (understandable ones) and I’d be interested in your view on whether I did the right or wrong thing, and even whether RP are doing the right think by looking for free stuff (reality of costbased vs political principles).
On the other hand, after an initial approach to CommentisFree to see what it was about I decided not to go anywhere near that for the very reasons you set out (whether I’m good enough to get pulished is a different matter!). Yet people I respect do choose to write for CiF, for example, and it does show that it’s a complex area worthy of bringing out for wider discussion in the blogosphere.
Red Pepper DO pay people i know. My bottom line is no-one should write anything for nothing……asideobviously from lettersto newspapers etc