Coverage of news may be upset

Press, 12 November 1985, Page 1

Coverage of news may be upset

By

Glenn Haszard,

Industrial reporter.

News coverage could be severely affected by industrial action from this week if the New Zealand (except Northern) Journalists’ Union directs strike action over the breakdown in conciliation talks for the daily newspaper journalists’ award.

The union is seeking support from the Printers’ Union before deciding what form of action its members should take. The Journalists’ Union secretary, Mr Tony Wilton, said from Wellington yesterday that the Printers’ Union had already given an assurance of “sympathetic consideration” if support was asked for, and the journalists had now asked formally for support. Mr Wilton declined to comment on when the earliest date might be for industrial action. The award covers not only daily newspaper journalists south of Taupo but the 26 Press Association staff and journalists working for the South Pacific News Service, Ltd, and the “New Zealand Times.” .

The service of news coverage by the Press Association and South Pacific is used by newspapers throughout New Zealand — not just daily newspapers. Conciliation talks for the award broke down on Saturday and the union withdrew its claims, which means that it could be another six weeks before the parties get together again. The present award will expire on Friday. The employers’ advocate, Mr Patrick Greene, said from Wellington yesterday that if the award had been

settled on Saturday, journalists could have been receiving pay increases of 16.4 per cent, which for a senior special journalist would have meant an extra $BO a week. Only a few journalists are graded senior special. The main sticking point in the talks was whether three duty editors at the Press Association in Wellington should be members of the union. There was agreement that the editor could be exempt, although the award as it stands does not exempt him. Neither the union nor the Newspaper Publishers’ Association would give

ground on the exemption status of three duty editors, one of whom is at present a member of the union, the other two not.

Legally, the award is quite clear on the question. There are no exemptions from union membership at the Press Association.

Almost every year for the last 20 years the issue has been raised at conciliation talks. This time it has cocme to a head.

The way the issue has been circumvented previously is that each year the union has given a letter to the N.P.A. undertaking not to bring a prosecution against the Press Association under the terms of the unqualified preference clause, which says that all workers covered by the award must become members of the union within 14 days of being asked to do so.

Sources say that the only reason the union has given the letter in previous years is that the N.P.A. made it a condition of settlement of the award, including wages. It was not a field of action which the union had previously chosen to take to its members.

But this year the union has viewed it differently, claiming that the introduction of new computerised equipment makes it possible for only a handful of duty editors to supply a lot of news. The union fears that in the event of a strike by union members, effectiveness would be neutralised by exempted editors doing their work.

Mr Wilton was asked why the union had not prosecuted duty editors and the editors of the Press Association earlier if it knew they were legally obliged to join the union.

He said that had the union prosecuted the association it would still have been in the same positioin at award talks: the employers seeking exemption and not agreeing to union claims on wages unless the union agreed to the exemptions.

It was possible to ban the handling of work done by the non-union members of N.Z.P.A. but that would be an academic exercise and would be non-productive because it would still not settle the award, he said. “Whatever was done, the situation was going to crop up at award time anyway. So instead of taking guer-rilla-type action we tried to negotiate. We offered to review our position if exempted people would not be used as strike-breakers or if those who were exempted were to be given the freedom to choose whether to join the union; but the employers would give no undertaking on either point.”

Mr Wilton said that if the employers were accurate in their protestations that people who wanted to be in the union could join even if exempted, or that exempted people would not be used to break any strikes, it should not be too much trouble to do so formally.

He said that the union assessors were resentful that the employers had implied in their statements that a journalist could not be loyal to both the employer and the union at the same time.

Chief reporters on provincial newspapers were members of the union, yet they managed to serve both the employer and the union without getting into the difficulties that the N.P.A. had said were critical, said Mr Wilton.

Mr Greene said that it was not the intention of the employers to use exempted duty editors as strike-break-ers.

The reason for the insistence on exemptions from union membership was that it was vital to the effective performance by editorial executives of their managerial functions to be exempted from union membership. The issue of exemptions was not new. The employers felt that duty editors and managerial staff should not be put in the situation where their loyalties were

divided between their union and their company. They were people who had to make decisions about hiring and firing, editorial stategy, staff discipline, and other managerial tasks. Union membership was incompatible with these tasks, said Mr Greene.

Newspapers had managerial staff such as editors and chief reporters who were exempted from union membership by the award, and the N.P.A. could not see why the same principle should not apply to the Press Association, he said. Mr Greene said that Mr Wilton had never offered to allow exemptions at the Press Association if the employers were prepared to give an assurance that they would not be used as strikebreakers. The union had all the time insisted that it would not consider exemptions of duty editors under any circumstances. On the issue raised by Mr Wilton of chief reporters on provincial newspapers being members of the union and exercising managerial roles, Mr Greene said that the N.P.A. would like them to be exempt too, but its main thrust was to maintain the status quo on exemptions. A compromise on numbers of exempted editors at the Press Association was not possible because the association’s editor was sometimes away travelling, and with the news service providing an 18-hour-a-day service it needed three duty editors plus the editor to be exempt. The union had also been unwilling to compromise on numbers, except that it was prepared to exempt the editor, said Mr Greene.

Union members covered by the award voted 665 to 77 to give their executive the mandate to call them out oh strike. Mr Greene said that such action would be totally unhelpful, would not force the employers to change their minds, and would be disappointing for union memoers, who would not get their pay increases on Friday.