As was mentioned in previous posts, the national National Writers Union Delegates Assembly will be in Chicago from Aug. 5 through Aug. 9.
Officially, Chicago has three delegates to the national assembly -- Regina Baiocchi, Tom Gradel, and me, Martin Zabell. However, it would be a dereliction of duty for us to only propose resolutions, plans for action, changes, etc. that we personally are interested in. There are lots of things that members are interested in that just haven't reached our eyes and ears.
We would appreciate it if Chicago writers who are members of the union as well as non-members who are interested in what the union can do for writers (future members, we hope) would post your ideas about what we should try to achieve from Aug. 5 through Aug. 9.
And please understand that non-delegates are welcome to attend the Assembly. The schedule is on an earlier post.
Shalom,
Martin Z.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
I forgot to mention that last night new NWU president Larry Goldbetter, the former chief of the Chicago branch, told me that prospective resolutions should be sent to the national office by July 17.
ReplyDeleteOfficially, it's preferable to post your thoughts before July 17, but I still encourage everyone to post your thoughts between July 17 and Aug. 9 so I can least convey the interests of Chicagoans to the national leadership, all of whom will be at the assembly.
Shalom,
Martin Z.
PROPOSED RESOLUTION
ReplyDeleteTHE NWU NEEDS TO ACT AGGRESSIVELY TO SUPPORT WRITERS WRONGED BY NEWSPAPER PUBLISHERS, ACCORDING TO THE U.S. SUPREME COURT
Facts: Ex-NWU president Gerald Colby has publicly said that the No. 1 reason for the National Writers Union's dramatically declining membership in recent years was the inability of writers to collect money due them from newspaper publishers stealing writers' works.
In 2001, the Supreme Court ruled 7-2 in New York Times vs. Tasini that publishers could not sell writers' works to online databases without the writers' permission. In 2005, the publishers and attorneys for the plaintiffs agreed to an $18 million settlement for these copyright violations and many writers submitted claims, expecting to collect a lot of money.
The settlement was blocked by ex-NWU members, and writers have not been paid to this day.
Resolution: The NWU should notify EVERY writer who submitted a claim that it is exploring what to do in light of the above facts. The NWU should ask ALL claimants to submit their ideas about how to proceed to a forum created by the NWU so all the writers can communicate with each other.
The NWU should also provide a report on the number of claimants and the total number of revenues they are seeking to all claimants.
The claimants' desires about what to do regarding the case should be paramount in how the NWU proceeds.
PROPOSED RESOLUTION
ReplyDeleteThe National Writers Union should endorse a proposal that self-employed professionals, including free-lance writers, be eligible to collect unemployment benefits if they lose their clients. The NWU should work with the Freelancers Union to lobby federal and state legislatures for this proposal, which has already been passed by the New York City government as a result of the actions of the Freelancers Union.
PROPOSED RESOLUTION
ReplyDeleteGiven the state of the journalism industry, the National Writers Union should begin an aggressive, pro-active effort to recruit formerly full-time journalists. The plan should include creating a "Journalism In Crisis" plan modeled after a plan I presented on Jan. 29 and is outlined elsewhere on this blog. The union should also "recruit" writers via press releases and advertisements placed in appropriate publications that emphasize several of the union's new plans. (Presumably, the union will have some after the Delegates Assembly)
PROPOSED RESOLUTION
ReplyDeleteThe National Writers Union needs to devise a plan to share far more information with non-members. If it did, it would have far more members. This seems so obvious that I feel foolish even writing it, but the NWU goes out of its way to keep information secret as if non-members are going to pay hundreds of dollars per year just to find out the results of a leadership election.
In its plan, the NWU needs to figure out what information should be public and what is exclusively for members. The public information can be used as a lure to get people so interested in the union that they are willing to be members and pay for the membership-only information.
An example of membership-only information would be the list of publications that pay more than $1 per word. Or advice on which publications in each city are good to work for, bad to work for, etc.
Plain-old news on members and events should not be hidden as it often is.
PROPOSED RESOLUTION
ReplyDelete(The UAW will not permit this resolution, but it's offered as a plan for the future if the UAW changes its plans)
Given the state of the economy and the need to recruit new members, the NWU should accept as members writers who are willing to volunteer their services in lieu of money. An annual membership card would be issued after a volunteer has contributed 10 hours of his or her time as verified by a member of the his or her local NWU leadership. After one calendar year, the members would be required to be paying members or volunteer non-members.
PROPOSED RESOLUTION
ReplyDeletePlease get rid of the slogan about writers doing what they do for fun and money. The fact that writers are so willing to write for "fun" is a major impediment to our success.
It's implicit that people do what they like to do, but carpenters don't gloat in union activities that they build for fun, auto workers don't gloat that they fix engines for fun.
There are millions of writers who are willing to be pushed around and this impacts the rest of us.
Resolution: The entire leadership of the National Writers Union, including all grievance and contract advisers and all local leaders, should be trained to understand the world of free-lance writers. Writing is a full-time profession for hundreds of thousands of people and there is a huge opportunity that has been blown because many NWU officials have had an abysmal understanding of how writers work. Writers whose income depends primarily on one or two clients cannot just quit because they have been wronged as one leader suggested.
ReplyDeleteRules should be devised with this understanding in mind. For example, the NWU required me to fill out the same information 4,000 times in order to file a request to be paid as a result of the Tasini vs. New York Times settlement (although I had copies of every bill that I ever sent). Talking to ex-president Gerald Colby about this was like talking to a wall. Similarly, I understand leaders also have jeopardized the cases of non-journalists via similarly astonishingly ignorant remarks.
PROPOSED RESOLUTION
ReplyDeleteThe National Writers Union should seek out writers whose works have been sold to other publications without their permission. This is a violation of the 1976 Copyright Act.
The union should announce it is contemplating a class-action lawsuit against publishers engaged in this practice. The writers can be found via writers' magazines and other outlets.
PROPOSED RESOLUTION
ReplyDeleteThe National Writers Union should establish blogs linked to the central Web site that allows writers to communicate with each other on a regular basis.
There should be blogs dedicated to a variety of major topics. Blogs cost nothing.
PROPOSED RESOLUTION
ReplyDeleteThe National Writers Union should re-establish its Jobs Hotline.
The Freelancers Union has a hotline with 40 or so jobs. The NWU should start with this resource in finding employers willing to post job opportunities with us.