From The Bookseller:
Penguin Random House has derecognised the National Union of Journalists and Unite for collective bargaining with its management.
The move, which breaks a particularly strong history of good relations between unions and management on the Penguin side of the business, is said to have left staff “bewildered” and “nervous.”
Negotiations have been going on throughout the autumn to finalise a new house agreement that would cover all the divisions of the merged PRH company but they failed to reach a resolution, with redundancy terms a key sticking point.
PRH UK c.e.o. Tom Weldon told staff in a memo on Friday (16th December) that there had been several months of discussions to bring all the London employees together under one union agreement.
“In doing this, the most important thing for us has been to have parity and equity for all London colleagues and ensure no groups of people are treated differently on account of where they are based or where they previously worked,” he wrote in the memo, seen by The Bookseller. The agreement had not been reached, and so the publisher’s formal relationship with the NUJ and Unite in London had come to an end, he said.
. . . .
Fiona Swarbrick, NUJ national organiser, said: “By de-recognising the NUJ and Unite, PRH has blatantly disregarded the views and wishes of its employees and has significantly damaged the good reputation of the business as being one which cares about people.” Unite’s regional officer Louisa Bull warned: “Unite will strongly oppose this hard-line stance by the management to erode employees’ redundancy rights. This is the thin end of the wedge that could lead to further erosion of pay and terms and conditions for staff.”
Link to the rest at The Bookseller
Click to Tweet/Email/Share This Post