Minority torpedo subs proposal
The journalists’ union’s Delegate Meeting in Blackpool
The NUJ’s incoming general secretary, Laura Davison, painted an upbeat picture of her first few months at the helm. She told the union’s biannual Delegate Meeting (DM) of new recognition agreements – most notably at PA – with several more in the pipeline. Recruitment is strong in targeted workplaces, and across the industry the union has achieved respectable pay increases for employed members.
The union’s finances are stable, if fragile. The union’s ability to influence the Westminster government is arguably at its highest point for half a century, and the NUJ and its members have done more to support their colleagues in Gaza than those in any other country. Much of the letting space in the union’s HQ is unoccupied, however, and overall membership is in slight decline. The meeting recorded a fall of 366 subscribers overall since the DM two years ago.
The decisions of that meeting, held in Blackpool on 25-27 May 2025, were similarly mixed.
There were broadly-agreed motions aplenty: praising the union’s work on the safety of journalists; condemning managerial chaos at RTÉ; fretting about upcoming reviews at the BBC; and imploring news platforms to better remunerate freelances.
Only two areas attracted fiercely-contested votes. The first was to raise subscriptions by approximately three per cent. It is an unusual requirement of the NUJ’s rules that the cost of membership can only be changed if it is agreed by two-thirds of those voting at a DM.
The vote in favour – for which I argued – won a comfortable majority of 55 per cent. It was well short, however, of the 66 per cent required. The upshot will be tight budgets and difficult decisions for two years, and the likely challenge of obtaining a ‘catch up’ increase at the next meeting. Whether allowing a minority such power over critical decisions is an issue for the future.
Gaza provided the other potentially combustible topic. A composite motion to which many branches were party, was easily approved, It condemned the shocking death toll among journalists in the enclave, praised the NUJ and the IFJ’s efforts to support them, and called for Israel to immediately allow international journalists into the area. A far more controversial motion that would have committed the union to support the Boycott, Diversity, Sanctions movement was defeated, 70:30.
The conference venue was billed as ‘the Winter Gardens’, but is an entirely new facility tacked to the back of the Victorian leisure complex. For veterans of gatherings in the Empress Ballroom and the Spanish Hall, it was an anodyne backdrop, albeit much better-suited to purpose.
With only 127 delegates, this was the smallest DM’s in recent memory. Several large branches did not field full delegations. Had they done so, the subs motion would probably have passed. The proportion of new delegates, however, appeared high and there were some impressive neophyte voices. BBC representative, who despite their numbers are usually back-seat participants, particularly distinguished themselves.
A number of motions from London Magazine Branch, which often proposes Socialist Workers’ Party positions, appeared to endorse blanket condemnation of BBC reporting of the Gaza war. The broadcasters, and their allies, fielded a diverse and compelling battery of speakers to dispatch these motions with the support of two thirds of the hall.
Irishmen Fran McNulty and Gerry Curran took over the union’s presidency. They exude a confidence and humour that will serve the union well. So too should the new vice president, Georgina Morris from Leeds, who despite her relative youth, is bursting with good ideas, and has significant industrial experience.
The task facing the NUJ in the coming two-year cycle is clear, if challenging. It must consolidate recent gains, and continue to build industrial presence. At the same time it must make itself relevant to the burgeoning mass of media workers who don’t think of themselves are journalists in the traditional sense, and often know little of trades unionism.
One proposal that was left to the National Executive to consider was the possibility of live-streaming future DMs. It is hard to imagine many actually sitting through these debates remotely. Surely, though, someone would reduce three day’s proceedings to a TikTok? Plenty of contributions to this DM had potential for a comic edit. Whether such exposure would serve the union well, however, is something on which its leadership should reflect long and hard.