Closed Shop

I don’t know if it’s still so, but the newspaper business used to be, for the most part, a closed shop. That meant all employees were required to belong to one of the printing trade unions whether they wanted to or not. In the Advertisement Department the admin staff, clerks, secretaries and others all belonged to NATSOPA (National Society of Operative Printers and Assistants) but the representatives who sold advertisement space in the titles were exempt from the rule. They were not forced to join any union, most were strongly opposed to them anyway and would not under normal circumstances even consider belonging to any organisation that negotiated their salaries and other terms of employment. They regarded such matters as highly confidential and considered themselves to be entirely capable of organising their own lives. This freedom came at a price. They were the only employees that could be dismissed by the company for any number of reasons, one of which seemed to be the possession of a face that didn’t fit! Curiously the same arrangements didn’t obtain in the Circulation Department, there, all were members of one union or another, even the representatives.

But this was the seventies, times were changing and the Chairman decided this situation should change too; advertisement sales representatives should now conform to the “Closed Shop” requirement prevalent in the rest of the organisation. He instructed me to negotiate a new contract of employment between the Company and it’s sales force. A working group from NATSOPA, the union they were all to join, comprised of elected leaders from the department and an FOC (Father of the Chapel) from the union. They would meet with a panel that included management representatives from the Personnel and Advertisement Departments, I was to chair all meetings and a resolution to the discussions was required without delay. I never did quite understand what the urgency was all about.

Initially the plan was greeted by the sales force with concern and more than a little suspicion. They were happy with things as they were and could see no reason why change was necessary. It took a while to convince them that the chairman was serious in his intent and eventually they agreed to become involved. Several months later, following many good natured meetings and some rather prolonged and expensive lunches, the negotiations were completed. A new section of the union was to be created to accommodate the new membership, mutually acceptable terms of employment that specifically excluded any mention of salaries were agreed and an FOC was elected by the members to represent them. There was even an official signing ceremony, it took place in a swish London restaurant, leaders of NATSOPA and Directors of the company congratulated each other on an “Historic change to working practices” and life returned to some sort of normality, except that now meetings had to be held to discuss every change made in the department. It slowed things down quite a bit.

Fortunately the sales team realised that give and take was the answer to most minor problems and there wasn’t any real discord as a result of the changes. It was, I was told at the time, the only agreement between a Fleet Street employer and a union that permitted the dismissal of a salesman or woman on the grounds of poor performance. There were of course stages to go through before dismissal, as there should be. It may seem obvious that if an employee wasn’t performing to the required level he or she should be removed, but it was the only union agreement at the time that actually provided for the eventuality.

The other newspaper companies didn’t follow suit, later when working in another publishing house I was told that their sales force thought it a very poor development and regarded the newly unionised team with disdain for quite some time afterwards.

I was reminded of all this by the reports of the potential strikes at BA. Sitting on the other side of a table trying to reconcile intractable views is a very difficult task. I can’t help looking back at similar disputes and noting the current position of the industries in which they took place; publishing, coal mining, steel production, ship building, the docks, the list seems endless. I hope good sense prevails and they reach an agreement, in addition to the catastrophic loss of so many jobs, an aviation industry without BA would be very damaging to our image abroad. That is a closed shop we can do without.