The following statement was released jointly by the News Media Guild and the National Union of Journalists. Both unions represent workers at the Financial Times in the United States and the United Kingdom, respectively.
National Union of Journalists – News Media Guild
JOINT STATEMENT OF SOLIDARITY
OUR UNIONS, which represent Financial Times journalists around the world, urge the employer to come to the bargaining table in good faith after it rejected talks with representatives of the News Media Guild.
The right of employees to bargain collectively is protected by the laws of the United Kingdom and the United States. For decades in the U.K., and more recently in the U.S., unions and management have successfully reached collective bargaining agreements. Importantly, the Nikkei Group, the parent company of FT, formally pledges adherence to United Nations labour standards in its corporate human rights policy.
Regrettably, FT management is undermining the rights of employees to bargain collectively in contravention of past practice, law, and contract – by actively interfering in the fundamental right of workers to decide who will represent them.
In the U.S., the FT has demanded that union staff be excluded from pay talks under a contractually specified joint bargaining process, a stance that is in violation of U.S. labour law. In the U.K., it has previously intimated that it cannot enter pay bargaining unless the process excludes News Media Guild staff, a stance that effectively leads to a refusal to negotiate on pay with either of our two unions.
This cannot stand.
The News Media Guild in the U.S. and the National Union of Journalists in the U.K. affirm their commitment to joint bargaining in good faith with FT. But bargaining cannot take place when the employer seeks to dominate internal union decisions.
The NUJ and the Guild together:
- Call on senior FT leadership to promptly reverse course and agree to come to the bargaining table in good faith
- Call on FT to drop anti-union preconditions and meet with representatives of the unions’ choosing
- Remind management that FT should adhere to its own corporate human rights policy when it comes to labour relations
