FREELANCERS

ABOUT US

ABOUT THE SITE

JOIN THE NUJ
(National site)

ADMIN

NUJ multimedia commission presents its findings

Risk assessment, and health and safety in general, is one of many issues that face journalists being asked to work in a multi-media environment.

Risk assessment, and health and safety in general, is one of many issues that face journalists being asked to work in a multi-media environment. Indequate training, overwork, and pay levels that fail to reflect multiple skills are endemic in workplaces where new media has been introduced without consulting chapels and reaching agreement on its implementation.

According to a survey into multi-media working carried out by the NUJ commission into multi-media working, only 31% of respondents have new media working included in their house agreements, “suggesting that incorporating new modes of working have been tacked on or flagrantly breach terms of existing agreements.

The commission recommends that chapels should be supported to insist that any changes and additional demands imposed on journalists as a result of multi-media working “must be negotiated”. On pay, it recommends that staff taking on extra skills, or transferring to shift work that entails unsocial hour woking “should be properly rewarded for doing so”. On training: chapels should be encouraged to negotiate agreements covering training, to secure new techonology training for all staff who want it. Nobody should be expected to undertake any task for which they have not been trained.

The NUJ has negotiated or is currently negotiation agreements with a number of companies including the BBC, national dailies in the UK and Ireland and Reed Business Information. In the provincial press, a framework agreement has been signed at the Yorkshire Post/Evening Post (Johston Press group) and a comprehensive agreement is being negotiated at the Liverpool Post and Echo (Trinity Mirror). Newsquest’s refusal to discuss new media working triggered a ballot for action at the Oxford Mail and Times this summer. As we go to press, the York and County Press chapel, also in the Newsquest group, are balloting on the same issue.