I have no strong views on the Middle East - but I do resent my union telling the world that British journalists take sides in this conflict. As a BBC journalist in a corporation which strives to be impartial I'm finding it hard to stay in a union which has now adopted this policy - and whose democratic deficit prevents it from finding out whether its members actually support this boycott. More than 300 BBC NUJ members have signed a petition calling for a ballot on the issue, a number of chapels and branches have backed that idea - so will the National Executive take notice? At least the lecturers' union the UCU is consulting its members at branch level before implementing a boycott. If you feel strongly about this come to this blog:
http://stopnujboycott.blogspot.com/
or the STOP THE NUJ BOYCOTT facebook group..

Hi Rory, thanks for joining the NUJ Facebook group.

Just a quick question - the NUJ supported the boycott of apartheid South Africa in the 80s without that interfering with how journalists reported that conflict, so what was your position on that boycott? Should we not have supported the call from COSATU at the time for solidarity?

As Desmond Tutu and other veteran anti-apartheid campaigners have noted, at least South Africa never sent helicopter gunships into the townships.

The NUJ takes positions on Chechnya, Zimbabwe, Tibet and on and on, and you've not organised any campaign to stop the union from taking a position in these places. Why the light touch with Israel? We're supposed to be opposed to oppression everywhere, not 'everywhere but Israel'.

Palestinian trade unions have called on trade unions around the world to support the boycott, and as a trade union, it's important to show solidarity to our brothers and sisters overseas, not just fight for better pay and conditions here at home. If you only care about NUJ journalists, we might as well not even have a union.

An injury to one is an injury to all, is it not?

Blimey - this is worse than I thought. My union is not only boycotting Israel - but Chechnya(or presumably Russia)Tibet(China?) and Zimbabwe. Perhaps it would be an idea to issue me with a little plastic card with the boycott details so that when I shop I can be sure that it's in accordance with NUJ policy.

Seriously my view , is that while it's fine for the NUJ to lobby for journalists' freedom around the world (see yesterday's Amnesty report on iranian bloggers etc) it has no business telling its members what their line should be on various international disputes.

Especially when a lot of members won't agree with the line. i've made it clear that I have no strong views on the Middle East - but I do resent it when my union is hijacked by people who want to use it for their own political ends. Ask yourself this - if the members at large were consulted over this boycott in a ballot do you honestly think they would support it?
The really serious issue here is the democratic structure of the union.

Rory, you've not answered my question about South Africa, or why you have singled out Israel for special treatment. Where's the campaign against our position on Zimbabwe, Rory?

You also haven't answered about how a union should repond to a call for solidarity from brother and sister union members who are not just facing censorship but daily murderous violence. Palestinian unions have asked us to help in a non-violent way, and we have responded, as have other unions. This sort of solidarity is precisely what unionism is about.

Furthermore, I was at the ADM, and I can tell you quite honestly that there was no hijacking going on at all. I didn't go there to vote on this motion. This was my first ADM and I listened to both sides and considered and then voted. To be honest, before I went, although I did have an opinion on this subject a priori, at my branch meeting where I was elected as delegate, I actually put forward the argument that the NUJ, because it is a journalists' union, shouldn't take a position on ANY political issues. However, the discussion in our branch won me over to the position that it is okay to do so. The argument was that the union from the very beginning has taken strong political stances and this hasn't stopped individual journalists from making a distinction between the lobbying work that their union does and the day-to-day reporting that they do themselves.

Simply because not every member or delegate to ADM works at a major broadcaster doesn't make them less aware of the subject matter or a bunch of radicals with some 'agenda'. The fact that the campaign to overturn this democratically taken decision is overwhelmingly led and followed by BBC workers is getting a little worrisome. Frankly, whatever one's opinion on this matter, who are the BBC workers in the NUJ to have some veto over the rest of the union?

The motion was taken in a democratic fashion, as was the election of the delegates who voted for or against the motion. The motion was in the agenda, which every member was sent (electronically) and one can only assume thus that in fact the membership did support the motion if they elected delegates who then voted in its favour. That's representative democracy. Going outside democratic channels, as this campaign is doing, is the real threat to democracy in the union.

In the end, for Pete's sake, a boycott is completely non-violent. We're talking Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr. here. It's not like we've passed a motion to organise fundraising disco house-parties for Hezbollah or something.

I really don't understand what all the fuss is about.

I'm rather with Rory on this. I'm an NUJ member of some 20 years standing and the various political stances the union takes has always made me uncomfortable. I feel strongly that the union should be focusing on things that are important to its members: negotiating good house agreements, supporting members who need help, working to prevent the erosion of professionalism, organising chapels where there is no representation .. ya know, the stuff that really counts.

How anyone feels about foreign affairs is really a matter of individual conscience, surely. Messing about with political posturing gives unions a bad name: it's not relevant, it makes us look like a throwback to the 1980s and it gives opponents an easy way to attack us.

I also worry about colleagues working in troublespots where the union has struck a pose. Journalists need to be seen to be impartial recorders of events. The NUJ posturing puts members at risk. I think that's unacceptable.

The NUJ should be about the members and our working lives. I don't see that political posturing is part of our working lives.

1. The boycott policy only covers one country - remind me, are we boycotting Iran, Syria, or Egypt where many of our fellow journalists are facing repression? (And I'm not suggesting that we should..)
2. You cannot claim that a democratic structure which sees delegates elected at branch meetings which are often not even quorate and then failing to consult the wider membership before voting at ADM is at all representative. If you are so supremely confident that this policy reflect the democratic will of the membership, you should join our call for a ballot.
3. The fact that broadcasters(at ITN as well as the BBC) have been prominent in this campaign reflects the reality that this is where there are now large concentrations of NUJ members. But we are not alone. The Manchester branch passed a similar motion to ours - as did Reuters and those notorious right-wingers at the Observer. Is that what you call "going outside democratic channels?"

1. The boycott covers only one country (and I would advise everyone to actually read what the motion says - there is currently no boycott and members are not being advised to do anything), because that's what was proposed by a branch within the democratic structures of the union. Why no boycotts of elsewhere? Because no-one proposed them.
2. Firstly, if there are examples of things being decided at branches that are not quorate, prove it and lodge a complaint. If they are, on the other hand, simply underattended, whose fault is that? If members want a say, they should turn up to meetings. Hopefully the increased turn-outs that have followed ADM to discuss this issue can be maintained at other meetings when they're not talking about Israel. As for "consulting the wider membership", that's exactly what ADM is - if you don't agree with who represents you, turn up when people are nominated.
3. Funny thing is, despite representatives of Reuters, the Guardian (I don't remember anyone from the Observer, I may be wrong), News International and even the Jewish Chronicle attending a London Central Branch meeting following them passing motions, it was decided at that meeting not to proceed with a further motion to the NEC. There is nothing in the rule book that allows a ballot about in relation to ADM decisions unless the instruction to hold the ballot comes from ADM. So, any call for a ballot on this is "outside democratic channels".

"I also worry about colleagues working in troublespots where the union has struck a pose."

How about the fact that some of the people campaigning most strongly for Alan Johnson's release have been members of the Palestinian Journalists Union, because of the solidarity we've shown to them over the years?

You're being hostile and defensive, which is hardly going to win you friends on this one. Chucking in the kidnapping of Alan Johnston is manipulative and not germane to the issue. Solidarity with colleagues in other countries is a completely different issue.

In fact I worry that the publicity about Alan Johnston could be counter-productive: it raises the stakes on his life and it also risks alienating colleagues in places where people are kidnapped day in, day out, with no outcry at all. If we're going to highlight the issue of kidnapping, we must put this kidnapping in context. It's one of hundreds, even thousands, in the Middle East.

Just been sifting through websites for stuff for the NUJ Policy Blog.

Found this excellent article via Tigmoo, the Trade Union blog portal. This guy argues that the row is "tearing apart the international trade union movement". He adds that it makes it look like that unions are trade union movement are basically giving up on the Israeli left and peace movements. Any boycott will only help the Israeli right, he argues.

http://www.ericlee.info/2007/06/unions_if_you_want_to_help_the.html

I sympathise with the view that a boycott helped to end Aparthied in South Africa, but in those days trade unions were in a position of strength. While we are trying to recruit we should be careful about which battles we pick.

For the sake of clarity, here is the motion as passed in full. When reading it you will find that Donnacha is right, it does NOT call on members to boycott Israeli goods and services, but rather "calls for a boycott of Israeli goods similar to those boycotts in the struggles against apartheid South Africa," amongst a raft of other solidaristic measures:

"ADM condemns the savage, pre-planned attack on Lebanon by Israel. ADM notes that the vast majority of those killed in 2006 have been Lebanese together with Palestinians in the Israeli occupied territories.

"This ADM condemns the slaughter of civilians by Israeli troops in Gaza and the IDF’s continued attacks inside Lebanon following the defeat of its army by Hezbollah.

"This ADM calls for the end of Israeli aggression in Gaza and other occupied territories.

"This ADM calls for a boycott of Israeli goods similar to those boycotts in the struggles against apartheid South Africa led by trade unions and the TUC to demand sanctions be imposed on Israel by the British government and the United Nations.

"This ADM instructs the NEC to support organisations including the Palestine Solidarity Campaign, Jews for Justice for Palestinians and the Council for the Advancement of Arab-British Understanding and continue supporting the programme of safety training and union building set out by the IFJ with its affiliate, the Syndicate of Palestinian Journalists.

"ADM encourages branches to find ways to support their Palestinian colleagues, noting as an example the ‘Reporting under Occupation’ meeting organised by the Oxford branch, which gave a platform to Al Hayat’s West Bank correspondent to explain the dangers, restrictions and limitations faced by Palestinian – and to a lesser extent non-Palestinian – journalists operating in the West Bank and Gaza."

Kate:

“…the union should be focussing on things that are important to its members… The NUJ should be about the members and our working lives. I don't see that political posturing is part of our working lives.”

The union does focus on these so-called bread-and-butter issues, and I would say to a much greater extent than many other unions. What is the work being done on scandalous low pay in provincial newspapers, or the work done around digital convergence, if not ‘things that are important to members’? There were some 200 hundred different motions that were put to ADM, the great majority of which were to do with pay and conditions. Pay and conditions are indeed the focus of the union.

In fact, in my experience with unions, it tends to be those unions that have a strong sense of social justice and international solidarity that do the best job of defending their members’ interests. Those that take a more conservative position on such issues also, entirely unsurprisingly, tend to take a more conservative position on pay and conditions, with sweetheart deals with employers, two-tier wage packages, buckling under to lay-offs and redundancies and so on.

In the Netherlands, where I was a member until a month ago, the Dutch journalists’ union, the NVJ, is deeply conservative on ‘political issues’, and also happens to be very weak-kneed when it comes to members’ interests. It is also very conservative in its definition of who counts as a journalist and does nothing to defend freelancers’ interests. It is more of a staff association that a trade union. I’m sure this isn’t what you want to see the NUJ turned into.

“How anyone feels about foreign affairs is really a matter of individual conscience, surely.”

Perhaps, but just as much as any domestic affair. By this logic, the union should also excuse itself from engaging in any solidarity work for other British or Irish unions. Should the NUJ solely take any position insofar as it directly affects NUJ members? So when other trade unionists or workers come under attack, we should leave it to our members’ individual conscience whether to do anything?

“Chucking in the kidnapping of Alan Johnston is manipulative and not germane to the issue. Solidarity with colleagues in other countries is a completely different issue.”

But showing solidarity with our colleagues in Palestine is precisely what Palestinian unions have requested of us. Then again, perhaps there are Palestinian journalists who are your mirror image and suggest that doing anything around Alan Johnston is ‘political posturing’ and a ‘foreign affair that is really a matter of individual conscience’ and getting too far away from Palestinian journalists’ ‘working lives’, but somehow I doubt it.

You’re a member of the NUJ. I’m sure you, like most of us, joined the union because you cared about more than yourself and also saw that it was only through joining with other journalists could we win respect, fair wages and safe conditions. If you are of this mind for other British and Irish trade unionists, surely you can extend such sympathy beyond the English Channel. What is an end to the occupation but essentially safe working conditions?

Rory:

“The boycott policy only covers one country - remind me, are we boycotting Iran, Syria, or Egypt where many of our fellow journalists are facing repression?”

There are a range of different actions and positions taken on Russia, Zimbabwe, Iran, Cuba, and on and on, as well you know. A boycott is not a blanket action to be applied to every case. Other tactics include awareness-raising campaigns, letter-writing, strikes, direct action, civil disobedience, fundraising, lobbying, etc., etc., all of which form part of different motions that have been taken up by our and other unions. As Donnacha said, there has been no boycott organised against other states for the simple reason that there has been no boycott organised against other states. You want one? No one’s stopping you.

Again, I want to underscore – I genuinely am surprised at the vitriol directed at what is a non-violent action. What on Earth sort of milquetoast action would you prefer to see taken against Israel, a stern finger-wagging and withholding of pudding?

Rosie:

“… it makes it look like that unions and the trade union movement are basically giving up on the Israeli left and peace movements. Any boycott will only help the Israeli right.”

The same argument could have been made twenty-five years ago, that a boycott was giving up on the Afrikaaner left and would only help the Afrikaaner right. This wasn’t true then, and it isn’t true now. The genuine Israeli left – that is to say that section of the left that didn’t for example support the attack on Lebanon last summer – supports the boycott. If we’re talking the Israeli Labour Party as being ‘the left’, well, given their history of belligerence, I think we should have given up on them long ago.

“While we are trying to recruit we should be careful about which battles we pick.”

The world is currently at war and the heart of the conflict between the West and Al Qaeda is threefold (Al Qaeda’s consistently stated three demands for an end to hostilities): the Israeli occupation, the presence of US troops in the Middle East, and US support for authoritarian Middle Eastern regimes. There can be no end to this war until Israel ends the occupation. What more important battle is there to pick?

I spelled "focusing" correctly: please don't sub my posts.

Taking a political stance on behalf of members without the backing of those members is not the same thing as solidarity with colleagues. How much more clearly do I have to spell this out?

Ouch! Let's remember we're in the same union, here, eh, whatever our disagreements on this particular issue. I've been cordial to you. I expect the same in response.

Still - I am sorry for the sub. Force of habit. I didn't even think about it - I spend a lot of time in my job re-anglicising texts by European writers who use American spellings. Go ahead and spell colour 'color', centre 'center' and spelt 'spelled' if you want as well.

But it is just not true that there is no backing from members. Members were informed. Branches held meetings. Members elected delegates. Delegates voted. That's representative democracy. Are you suggesting that every other one of the dozens and dozens of motions that passed were also done without the backing of the membership or just this one? Because if you are indeed suggesting the former, then better you get yourself involved with a 'Democratise the NUJ' campaign than just focus on this one issue.

If nothing else good comes of this issue, at least it's got some members back involved with branch activity. I just hope they don't disappear once this particular hobby-horse issue of theirs goes away.

The branch structure is paralysed - how often do regular members go to branch meetings? People view themselves as members of chapels, not as branch members; and chapels have their own local issues to keep them busy - which is the way it should be, surely. I last went to a branch meeting in 1988, not least because I was turned off by the amount of stuff the branch was bogged down in that wasn't relevant to me. If that's changed since then, well, great, but it's not what I hear.

Are branch meetings even quorate these days? How can a motion possibly be considered democratic if it's passed by a non-quorate branch meeting? The truly democratic way to get the union backing is to ballot individual members: the rest of the trade union movement has had to recognise this, it's time the NUJ did, too.

I am being cordial, by the way: you're the one altering what I said and not addressing my point, which I'll restate for the record as you still haven't addressed it: striking a pose is not the same thing as solidarity with colleagues.

Meantime, could you perhaps provide the figures on the voting for this motion? The method of balloting, the turnout etc? Convince me that this boycott is indeed a reflection of the mood of members and I'll be happy.

"You're being hostile and defensive, which is hardly going to win you friends on this one."

Kate, please - I'm sorry, but I am being neither hostile nor defensive. Please do not throw accusations around, there have been enough of those in relation to this issue. The issues surrounding the situation in Gaza that led to the kidnapping of Alan Johston are absolutely germane to the point you made.

Where do you think journalists are most at risk of attack from those against whom we take a stance? Are you really suggesting that you think journalists are likely to be attacked in Israel? In fact, the sad reality is that they're most likely to be attacked in the Occupied Territories - whether by militants, criminals or the IDF. Solidarity and support for our colleagues in Palestine might hopefully work to change that situation.

Do you know the conditions Palestinian journalists, particularly those in Gaza, face on a daily basis due to Israeli policy? If local journalists are prevented from doing their job properly, then how do they expose the things going on around them? How do they use the media to challenge criminals, militants and the authorities when they do wrong as a proper media should?

As for the publicity around Alan Johnston, this isn't being done ignorantly or without reference to a great many people who know what's going on the ground. The NUJ has been in regular contact with the Palestinian journalists union and representatives of the Palestinian authorities.

Why he's getting a lot of attention? Let me quote from Amnesty International's piece on Press Freedom Day - http://web.amnesty.org/pages/315-030507-feature-eng (which I wrote):
"Alan Johnston, the BBC journalist abducted by Palestinian gunmen on 12 March 2007, has become a symbol of the dangers journalists face in conflict areas. Though he is well liked and respected in Gaza, Alan was seemingly abducted just because he was a high profile foreigner. Since his abduction, foreign journalists are no longer going to Gaza and the humanitarian crisis there has dropped off the world news agenda."

Alan has been adopted as a symbol of journalists under attack, not just in Gaza/Palestine, but by journalists organisations across the Middle East and the rest of the world. You can bemoan the fact that a white British man becomes the symbol and not, for example, an Iraqi or Egyptian, but that's the way the world works, I'm afraid. I spend my working life trying to change this, but it's not easy.

I've been reading this with interest and note that Leigh's arguments have failed to be persuasive on a fundamental point. He has not made the case as to why a union, specifically established to represent working journalists in the UK should be campaigning on broader international issues. I think it's clear that this unfortunate business is distracting from the union's core functions. At ITN we are currently battling to save jobs from cutbacks. Our union representatives have the task of trying to persuade people to come together in the union and support our colleagues who risk losing their jobs and livelihoods. They are also given the task of also explaining why a workplace union is taking a divisive stance on a contraversial international issue... Isn't this a distraction from the union's core function?

From the NUJ rulebook:
"Rule 1
(b) The objects of the union shall be:
(vi) The defence and promotion of peace, social justice and civil liberty;"
http://www.nuj.org.uk/inner.php?docid=863

The NUJ has always engaged in international issues, it has members in numerous countries and issues in other countries have an impact on our members. The union is part of the International Federation of Journalists and has, since its inception, been part of the proper trade union tradition of international solidarity.

This is not to say that international issues are a distraction and this one of the most blatant pieces of disinformation that has accompanied the debate about the Israel motion. The motion was one of over 200, the vast majority of which were about industrial issues. Read my blog post about the news from ADM as it related to new media: https://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=12978392&postID=8399606097037199963

If there are people in ITN who are refusing to stand in solidarity with their colleagues because of the Israel motion, then who's being distracted? And who loses out? If journalists object to our solidarity with fellow journalists in Palestine and object to our opposition to war, then, quite honestly, I question whether they know what the fundamental principles of trade unionism are.

Finally, on the point about who's being distracted, I note you posted in this topic and not in my one about workplace organising - which surely is the more important issue?

Ok we're never going to agree because your point of view is seemingly that the union should be more concerned about campaigning for vague notions of international solidarity with little prospect of any results, than protecting the jobs of its own members.... It's an absurd position. There are plenty of organisations people can be members of if they want to campaign for "The defence and promotion of peace, social justice and civil liberty;"... there is only one NUJ... shouldn't it represent members on what they can agree on?

Excuse me? I'm a member of the NEC, a member of the New Media Industrial Council, both a T&G Shop Steward and Father of the Chapel in my workplace - I really don't think I have to prove my credentials when it comes to getting my hands dirty with day to day union work.

It says on the NUJ application form "I [...] agree to abide by the rules and code of conduct of the NUJ." I've quoted you the rule as it stands and I assume you signed your application form, so you already agreed to "defending and promoting peace, social justice and civil liberty." Christ, you're arguing this with an Irishman who joined the NUJ when still in Ireland - a union that stood for international solidarity within these islands through incredibly difficult times. The NUJ started in Dublin in 1909 and has remained a presence since - international solidarity has always been part of this union.

I didn't see Mark attacking you, Donnacha. Feeling a wee bit touchy about this issue, perhaps?

Yes, I am touchy about all the people accusing me and others of disregarding the issues of members, while they bang on and on about the bloody Israel motion and ignore all the others. I'm sick to death of the constant discussions about this, particularly when they're so damn ill-informed. Why is this thread the one with most posts in this group and not the workplace organising or the students one?

I am annoyed about the fact that the last NUJ training course on recruitment was cancelled due to lack of interest. I am pissed off when I talk to a new colleague of mine who used to work for the Beeb and Channel 4 and he says no-one ever asked him to join the union. I am narked that, after the biggest turn-out in a long time at a London Central Branch meeting to discuss the bloody Israel motion, the meeting last Tuesday had the smallest turn-out in months.

For the record, I'm on the NEC, we took no position on the motion and didn't have a vote. So we've got nothing to do with it. I'm sick of hearing about it - could everyone just bloody get over it and try concentrating on the union issues everyone seems to think are the things the union should be concentrating on - please!

Donnacha - I have some sympathy with your feelings. You are obviously a hard-working intensely committed guy who feels passionately about the union and devotes his life to its advancement.. But here is the sad truth - 99% of NUJ members aren't like that. Whether you like it or not, most of us are not that interested - we are members out of some vague feeling of solidarity with fellow journalists and from a hard-headed belief that it is a form of insurance against the times when our employers turn on us. Sad, I know, but that is the reality.
But what we don't like is to wake up and find that the activists have run off and turned the union into some kind of student political fighting force.
The upside of the affair - from your point of view as well as mine - is that it has actually got the slumbering majority to wake up and think about the NUJ. They've actually attended branch meetings..Perhaps we need a few more daft decisions from ADM to whip the membership out of its comfortable apathy. I come back to my central point in all of this..A union where the wide-awake activists gallop ahead of the slumbering mass membership is in trouble - and if the National Executive thinks it can ignore that, then it is foolish.

Fraternally, Rory

I agree...

Great post, Rory

Donnacha, I spent more than a decade as a chapel officer at the FT and we were very proud that we maintained a strong chapel and recognition throughout the 1990s. We did it by focusing on the members and what mattered to them. When the management tried to impose appraisals on our members, we went to Acas and turned it into a voluntary career discussion, and we reminded the management of that every time they tried to lean on someone to take part in the scheme. We kept sabbaticals, we negotiated a very good redundancy package as part of the house agreement, and proudest of all, I think, is that we made sure that our members with RSI were either rehabilitated or were generously paid off.

Most of those achievements were down to the wonderful leadership of Alan Pike, a man absolutely connected to the needs and concerns of the membership he was elected to represent. It was also down to the hard work of the committee and of subsequent FoCs and MoCs.

The point is that it was a dialogue at all times between the members of the chapel and the committee; and that the committee at all times remembered it was elected to represent the membership, not to impose positions upon it. I'm sure you're pissed off - it certainly sounds that way. Work in dialogue with your membership and it will repay you in spades. It would be a great deal more positive and fruitful all round if the NEC took on board the unhappiness being expressed among people about this rather than sit in isolated grouchiness moaning about how ungrateful we all are.

It doesn't matter whether the union should be campaiging over Israel or not.
What matters is that a properly constituted annual conference of the union has voted for the boycott.
It is against the rules of the union for the national executive to overturn that decision.
People have every right to oppose the boycott, or to want to limit the range of discussion at the conference - but the way to do it is to bring a resolution to the next conference. Not to campaign for the national executive to break the rules of the organisation it is supposed to be leading.
Any union member can put a resolution to the conference through their branch meeting, and be elected a delegate to conference by the branch.
Opponents - and supporters - of the boycott need to organise themselves to use the very demoncratic structure of the union to win the argument.
I've been an active member of the NUJ for about 26 years. The conference has taken many decisions I've disagreed with - that's democracy.

Miles - you paint a rosy picture of democracy in the NUJ which just does not match up to reality. Time after time, motions are passed at conference by delegates who are completely unrepresentative of the wider membership - and who have not bothered to ask the members of their branches which way they should vote. At the BBC more than 300 NUJ members signed a petition calling for a ballot on the boycott. Yet at least two of our own delegates voted for the boycott policy - and finding out exactly how the others voted has been a bit of a challenge.

Activists like you will say, tough - if you dont' turn up for branch meetings you can expect to be stitched up with daft policies. Accept it - or bugger off. Well we may choose the second option.

Rory
I wouldn't say tough.
I'd say stand for election for one of the positions in your branch.
I know you're busy but you can do it as a job share.
And at the BBC more than 300 is not a majority - although if five percent of them had gone to the branch meeting discussing resolutions they would probably have won the vote.
Manchester branch's delegation to the conference all supported the anti-war resolution debated. But they all voted against it because that was the branch mandate.
That is an example of a very rosy democracy.
Of course people have a right not to go to meetings.
But if they chose to participate the union would be much stronger, we'd all be better paid, and the bosses would be on the run.
It's not just about this boycott resolution.
It is about everyting the union does.
We are the NUJ - and we are only as strong as our own commitment.

Completely agree, Rory.

So, your idea is that we forget about democracy (and let me remind people that any changes to the organisational structure of the union will also be decided democratically) and do nothing that might offend any minority in the union (which, despite the noise that's being created, the anti-boycott people are). So, no criticising Yahoo! over China - that might annoy China supporters - no supporting trade unionists in Colombia, let's just drop all international work and say stuff solidarity. Why not leave the IFJ while we're at it - let the bloody foreigners sort things out for themselves. Oh, hang on, what about those pesky foreign members of the union and those who work in countries outside these islands? Let's kick 'em out - I'll pass the message onto my colleague from Gaza, we don't want his membership.

Hmm, thinking about it more, what about Ireland. I'm sure there are major differences of opinion about Northern Ireland in the union. There are presumably people who think the PSNI are great. So, that's it, ditch the Nationalists and sure can't all the Irish members sod off as well.

Now, who's left. OK, those damnable lefties who support nationalisation - let's get rid of them too. And so on, and so forth.

It's democracy, it doesn't work if people refuse to take part. There is no alternative to it - if you've got a problem with the policies or procedures of the union, the only way people are going to be able to address them and debate them is if people take part.

There was a time when people actually regarded being a member of a union as a responsibility as well as protection - they actually thought that acting in solidarity with others actually meant something. Alas, these days, solidarity for too many is many is about covering their own ass and forgetting about everyone else.