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London Magazine Branch

January 1999

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• Bolton demonstration
• Report goes monthly

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Themon Djaksam, father of chapel at West Africa , which has taken a series of weekly strikes over the past nine months in protest at late payment of wages, mismanagement and poor working conditions

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Fear and loathing in Bolton

A delegation of London Magazine Branch members joined a march through Bolton in support of sacked father of Chapel Dave Toomer shortly before Christmas.
Dave was singled out for redundancy because of his success in recruiting journalists at the Bolton Evening News to the union. He is also a member of the NUJ's National Executive Committee.
The paper is owned by Newsquest, which is determined to prevent its staff taking advantage of the forthcoming union recognition law, Fairness at Work.

Bolton Evening News editor Mark Rossiter skulked around the edge of the rally in the town square with a camera and tape recorder. Rossiter successfully intimidated many of his staff into not joining the demonstration. But his paranoia has reached clinical proportions: he has made it a discliplnary offence for staff to buy or read left-wing publications.
When NUJ general secretary John Foster addressed the rally he challenged Rossiter to come and give his side of the story. Rossiter slunk off.

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Monthly reports

THE Report is going monthly. To keep members better informed of the branch's activities, the last meeting voted to double the frequency of the newsletter.
From now on, the Report will include all motions submitted for debate at the forthcoming branch meeting, as well as a summary of the previous meeting. (The main achievement of the December meeting was to elect our eight delegates to the NUJ's annual conference, and to scoff lots of mince pies.)
We hope more frequent Reports will encourage more people to attend and get involved.
Anyone who wants to submit a motion should get the text to either the Report editor Gordon Jamieson or the branch chair Martin Cloake 14 days before the meeting. Emergency motions that do not involve spending money can, of course, still be submitted on the day of the meeting.

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