A new front is opened at Northcliffe papers

NUJ members at the South Wales Evening Post in Swansea have launched a daring bid for formal union recognition by the owners, Northcliffe Newspapers, part of the anti-union Daily Mail group.

Union membership has doubled in the past year, with a clear majority of journalists now in the union, but the formal request for recognition has sparked a hostile reaction from the paper’s editor, Spencer Feeney.

Within two days he wrote two ranting letters to staff, accusing the NUJ chapel of being “misleading” and not enjoying support among the workforce.

He said that conditions were worse in well-unionised offices such as the Western Mail group in Cardiff — prompting a damning reply from the chapel in Cardiff itself.

With the recognition application turned down it now goes to the government’s Central Arbitration Committee, which adjudicates over union recognition.

NUJ Assistant Organiser for Wales Lawrence Shaw said: “Northcliffe will attempt to demonise the union as being some kind of divisive third party intent on wrecking the apparently perfect relationship between management and staff.

“But as the move to go for recognition has come entirely from the chapel members within the Post, we are confident they will see through the discredited and deeply ideological Northcliffe anti-union propaganda.”

The union has recognition in Northcliffe only at the two daily titles in Bristol and at the Leicester Mercury.

The Journalist is published by the National Union of Journalists