The Yorkshire Freelance

THE Yorkshire Freelance is a personal attempt to improve communication between the Freelance Industrial Council and freelance NUJ members in Yorkshire.

The first issue was produced when a "new" FIC met in May 2003.

• Issue 1: May 2003

Issue 1: May 2003

• Welcome to The Yorkshire Freelance
• Make your position clear
• Co-operation threatens Goliaths

Time is limited so setting priorities is vital

Freelance sector is Union's largest

WELCOME to the The Yorkshire Freelance – a newsletter for freelance members of the National Union of Journalists in Bradford, Calderdale, Huddersfield, Leeds, South Yorkshire, Wakefield and York branches.

The effort is personal - not because I'm seeking any glory, but because as a new member of the Union's Freelance Industrial Council, I want others to know what is going on and to have the chance easily to put forward suggestions, comments and moans.

According to statistics for the year ending in September 2002 published in the NUJ's latest annual report, freelances were the largest single industrial sector - with 6,265 members paying full subscriptions, ahead of 5,077 working in broadcasting and 5,361 in provincial newspapers.

Yet, because many of us work independently and in relative isolation, our voices may not have been as loud as those collectively raised in strong staff chapels.

Many whose NUJ membership records show they are freelance will receive copies of the Freelance, the newsletter produced by the London Freelance Branch and distributed in the mail with The Journalist.

The Freelance and the website debate and report general matters of policy and interest, rather than questions pertinent to Yorkshire.

Here, the "consolidation" of the Johnston Group with the Yorkshire Post and Yorkshire Evening Post in Leeds and the Halifax Courier could have continuing implications - for those selling stories and those seeking shifts.

The Bradford chapel had to organise a second ballot after being in dispute with Newquest - the UK arm of the US Gannett media giant - for eight weeks. Members there voted overwhelmingly to continue their strike action.

Such action has implications for freelances too - in not taking shifts or filing copy in support of those paid so little by a company that made £8.5m profit in Bradford alone during 2002.

Working with chapels - and group chapels such as those being formed at Northcliffe, Gannett/Newsquest and Johnston Group titles - is important.

There are Union members in senior staff positions who can argue with managers for the increased budgets that would bring more work and better pay for freelances.

Calderdale Branch secretary Andrew Bibby has already suggested that more should be done to educate chapel officers and staffers about how they can support freelances, including producing a leaflet to explain our common interests.

The FIC has drafted "freelance dispute guidelines" - and these show how staffers and freelances can support each other when problems have become so serious that industrial action is considered.

But, while some staff chapels have started winning Union recognition and pay increases, many freelance rates have seen little if any improvement in 10, perhaps 20, years. Ways of keeping freelances in line with today's hard-won rises have been suggested, but little has been proposed about trying to recover ground lost since the 1980s.

Copyright remains a battleground. Some may be "grabbing" fewer rights with one hand, but by obliging freelances to become staff members for a week or even a day at a time when "intellectual property" is created, this fight has not truly yet been won.

There are many tasks the FIC could take on - but its members have livings to try to earn too. Setting priorities is vital - and feedback is essential to that. Please help the process and contribute.

AC

Read, write and make your position clear

TECHNOLOGY should now have made isolation less of a problem and communication far easier and cheaper for freelances than not long ago.

Firstly, an "e-list" has been set up so that freelances in the Yorkshire region can communicate easily with one another.

Joining is simple: send this message - yorksfreejourn-subscribe@yahoogroups.com

Membership is "restricted", so you may receive an e-mail from me asking you to confirm your freelance status and membership of one of the NUJ branches in the Yorkshire region.

Anyone can post a message to the list, so informing every freelance who has joined takes only one e-mail and you don't need to keep your own mailing lists.

Please respect reasonable journalistic standards when you send messages, however frustrating it may be when you want to say what you really think about a commissioning editor who has broken a promise or a payment that is weeks overdue.

I will post details of FIC meetings - including agendas in advance and summaries afterwards.

I hope others will use the list to update others about, for example, who is - or is not - hiring for shifts, buying material, is cutting budgets, what technology changes are in the offing and so on and so forth. Nothing is off limits if it is relevant to freelance journalists.

Perhaps best of all, the system includes an automated diary which sends out reminder messages before events that have been entered.

I will list FIC meetings and members will get messages about the agenda in advance, giving them time to contact me or the NUJ's Freelance Officer John Toner with any items they want discussed.

Regular events, such as branch meetings, can also be added - with a single entry covering those that take place regularly!

Please do enter details of events that may interest freelances in Yorkshire.

Also, messages are automatically saved and archived, so they are there for reference - and these newsletters will be uploaded as "pdf" files too.

Finally, I am working to establish a "Yorkshire section" for the Freelance Industrial Council pages of the NUJ website - and it should, I hope, be online soon.

AC

Strength in numbers

Goliaths are threatened by freelance co-operation

DID you know that you are a member of a cartel potentially so strong that the world's strongest and most influential industrialists have sought government protection against you?

The freelance sector "gathering" at the NUJ annual delegate meeting in Llandudno in early April heard that legal advice had been sought by the Union to try to avoid allegations from employers that an updated Freelance Fees Guide would not fall foul of restrictive practice and competition laws.

When the Guide last came out, a protest was lodged with the UK government's Department of Trade and Industry.

When enough Davids and Davinas get together, even the mightiest Goliaths start to worry.

BIGGER budgets should mean better products , but the suits and accountants running newspapers, magazines and broadcasting appear to have lost sight of the benefits that freelances can bring - either from expert contributors who would otherwise be beyond their means or by bringing flexibility - but not false economies - to how they manage staffing.

And, staff colleagues have found their own jobs so threatened that they have had neither the time nor the energy to bear freelance interests in mind.

Will readers still buy magazines with poor quality contents? Will free newspapers with nothing in them last even five minutes before being thrown in a bin? Audiences have abandoned multi-channel "dumbed-down" broadcasting in their hundreds of thousands. One click and a crap website is abandoned to cyberspace for ever.

Investors and advertisers obviously think the media has a future, but their ambition seems limited. Freelances add quality - directly and indirectly - to any organisation and what it produces. Bigger budgets can mean higher quality and greater profitability.

Should we be modest in promoting the benefits we can bring? Is the idea that we can "add value" to such products just business jargon? Cutting corners makes everything cheap. Investment in quality works - for freelances, staff, organisations, readers and audiences - a "win-win" for all.

We should remind them all how much we can offer.