U.K. JOURNALISTS DISCIPLINED

Press, Volume XCVIII, Issue 29016, 3 October 1959, Page 4

U.K. JOURNALISTS DISCIPLINED

Publication During Printing Dispute (Special Correspondent N Z.P.A.) LONDON. October 1. The executive of the National Union of Journalists has disciplined 30 members of fl. ? Derby "Evening Telegraph” chapel “for acting contrary to executive instructions during the printing dispute.” Eleven have been suspended for six months, 11 for three months and eight reprimanded. These steps followr a report from the executive’s complaints committee During the printing dispute the newspaper’s editorial chapel decided to co-operate in publishing an emergency edition, which was declared black. The “Guardian,” Manchester, maintaining that a man cannot abdicate from individual responsibility because he belongs to a trade union, strongly criticises the union’s action. “All who are concerned with press freedom must be disturbed by the decision to punish these journalists for not deserting their paper. True, the punishments are mild, but the principle is important: should those whose responsibility in their work is. in the last resort, individual, be regarded as meriting punishment if they follow their own consciences during a trade dispute? A journalist did not want to weaken the position of his friends in other departments, but his work is also a public service, and if by some means his paper can continue to publish ought he to stop working for it?

“This must be'an individual decision, and it should be respected as such.” the “Guardian" says.