ERIC · DOCUMENT RESUME ED 294 549 IR 013 094 AUTHOR Sparks, Colin TITLE Trade Union Users of...

33
DOCUMENT RESUME ED 294 549 IR 013 094 AUTHOR Sparks, Colin TITLE Trade Union Users of Video. PUB DATE Jul 86 NOTE 33p.; Paper presented at the International Television Studies Conference (London, England, April 10-12, 1986). PUB TYPE Viewpoints (120) -- Speeches/Conference Papers (150) EDRS PRICE MF01/PCO2 Plus Postage. DESCRIPTORS *Administration; Audiences; Broadcast Industry; Bureaucracy; Capitalism; Collective Bargaining; Communications; Foreign Countries; *Industry; Labor Education; *Mass Media; Political Attitudes; Technological Advancement; *Unions; *Videotape Recordings; Working Class IDENTIFIERS *England; Public Sector ABSTRACT A number of important consequences have resulted from the generally increased sensitivity of trade unions to questions of communication and representation, particularly the trade union's uses of videos. Primarily developed by union leadership as a response to general political problems they have faced in the last decade, trade union videos constitute a large and expanding area of non-broadcast video work. These trade union officials have a precise sense of their members' needs and are prepared to experiment with different formal solutions to problems of communication. However, they also have a strong interest in controlling the content of material produced at P-- times. The major functions of these materials are general campaigning and training and education of members, and the distribution of materials for other uses poses severe problems. Conflicts of interest within and between union leadership and video makers have led some trade unionists to look for alternative forms of communication. Many of the avenues tried are fraught with difficultiei, and forms of communication which go beyond the limits set by officials may not resolve all of the problems. Video workers who wish to be independent of the restrictions placed on them by the bureaucracy need financial help as well as organizational and political space. The appended list of sources includes 25 printed works, 22 interviews, and 20 tapes. (CGD) *********************************************************************** Reproductions supplied by EDRS are the best that can be made from the original document. ***********************************************************************

Transcript of ERIC · DOCUMENT RESUME ED 294 549 IR 013 094 AUTHOR Sparks, Colin TITLE Trade Union Users of...

Page 1: ERIC · DOCUMENT RESUME ED 294 549 IR 013 094 AUTHOR Sparks, Colin TITLE Trade Union Users of Video. PUB DATE Jul 86 NOTE 33p.; Paper presented at the International Television. Studies

DOCUMENT RESUME

ED 294 549 IR 013 094

AUTHOR Sparks, ColinTITLE Trade Union Users of Video.PUB DATE Jul 86NOTE 33p.; Paper presented at the International Television

Studies Conference (London, England, April 10-12,1986).

PUB TYPE Viewpoints (120) -- Speeches/Conference Papers (150)

EDRS PRICE MF01/PCO2 Plus Postage.DESCRIPTORS *Administration; Audiences; Broadcast Industry;

Bureaucracy; Capitalism; Collective Bargaining;Communications; Foreign Countries; *Industry; LaborEducation; *Mass Media; Political Attitudes;Technological Advancement; *Unions; *VideotapeRecordings; Working Class

IDENTIFIERS *England; Public Sector

ABSTRACTA number of important consequences have resulted from

the generally increased sensitivity of trade unions to questions ofcommunication and representation, particularly the trade union's usesof videos. Primarily developed by union leadership as a response togeneral political problems they have faced in the last decade, tradeunion videos constitute a large and expanding area of non-broadcastvideo work. These trade union officials have a precise sense of theirmembers' needs and are prepared to experiment with different formalsolutions to problems of communication. However, they also have astrong interest in controlling the content of material produced atP-- times. The major functions of these materials are generalcampaigning and training and education of members, and thedistribution of materials for other uses poses severe problems.Conflicts of interest within and between union leadership and videomakers have led some trade unionists to look for alternative forms ofcommunication. Many of the avenues tried are fraught withdifficultiei, and forms of communication which go beyond the limitsset by officials may not resolve all of the problems. Video workerswho wish to be independent of the restrictions placed on them by thebureaucracy need financial help as well as organizational andpolitical space. The appended list of sources includes 25 printedworks, 22 interviews, and 20 tapes. (CGD)

***********************************************************************

Reproductions supplied by EDRS are the best that can be madefrom the original document.

***********************************************************************

Page 2: ERIC · DOCUMENT RESUME ED 294 549 IR 013 094 AUTHOR Sparks, Colin TITLE Trade Union Users of Video. PUB DATE Jul 86 NOTE 33p.; Paper presented at the International Television. Studies

U.S. DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATIONOffice of Et-Jests:AM Rematch and ImpCnmM

EDUCATIONAL RESOURCES INFORMATIONCENTER (ERIC)

i Una document nu been reproduced ufecund from the person or orungatronoriginating it :

0 Minor changes have been made to improve ,reproduction cprafity.

I

points of slew or OMMCna meted in this docu-mnt do not nuessenly represent officialOERI positron or poky.

Trade Union Uses of Video

Colin Sparks

Polytechnic of Central London

Paper Presented to the 1986 InternationalTelevision Studies Confei-ence

BEST COPY AVAILABLE2

r

"PEEMISSION TO REPRODUCE THISMATERIAL HAS BEEN GRANTED BY

Robert Paterson:

TO THE EDUCATIONAL RESOURCES"INFORMATION CENTER (ERIC)."

Page 3: ERIC · DOCUMENT RESUME ED 294 549 IR 013 094 AUTHOR Sparks, Colin TITLE Trade Union Users of Video. PUB DATE Jul 86 NOTE 33p.; Paper presented at the International Television. Studies

Page 1

Introduction

Relations between the trade unions and the mediahave been the subject of much attention andcontroversy over the last decade or so. Amongstactive trade unionists the view is widely held thatthe mass media are one way or another direct andunmediated servants of the employers and the state(Goodwin, 1985). Academic research has, of course,taken a rather more measured and nuanced approach,whether it has found that there is some objectivebasis to the charges made by trade unionists, orwhen it has claimed that the mass media have infact operated according to the criteria ofobjective reporting. It is not the intention ofthis paper to rehearse these arguments or toattempt to advance that debate. Rather I want tolook at one of the consequences of the generallyincreased sensitivity of trade unions to questionsof communication and representation

The trade union movement itself has devoted asubstantial. amount of attention to its relationswith the media. A number of books (for exampleMacShane,1983: Drinkwater, 1984) dealing with howto 'handle' the media are widely used ih formal andinformal trade union education. Courses exist,there are some at PCL for instance; which aim tofamiliarise trade unionists with methods ofpresentation (for a good summary, see Goodwin andField, 1985). The TUC has published reports on themedia (TUC 1979x, 1979b, 1980, 1981)' and iscurrently producing a series of guides to aspectsof the media for its member unions. The first ofthese is Guidelines for Trade Unions on, Use ofAdvertising (TUC, . n.d. C19853). :In hisintroduction, Norman Willis, General Secretary ofthe TUC, locates this publication as one of theresults of 'a conference of union principalofficers held in January 1985, to consider union'communications as part of an overall review of TUCstrategy'. The second of this series is currentlyin preparation and it deals with trade union usesof video. In this paper I want to examine some ofthe issues raised by this development.

Video remains an expensive medium, although itshardware costs are falling, and it is thereforeimportant to ask why it should be the case that the

Trade Union Video

Page 4: ERIC · DOCUMENT RESUME ED 294 549 IR 013 094 AUTHOR Sparks, Colin TITLE Trade Union Users of Video. PUB DATE Jul 86 NOTE 33p.; Paper presented at the International Television. Studies

Page 2

decision has been taken to use the members' moneyin this way and not another. It is also an area inwhich the trade unions do not have a oreat deal ofexpertise and they are obliged to enter intocontractual relations with production companies inorder to achieve their ends. There are, as we shallsee, a wide range of such companies, with differentpolicies and aesthetic strategies. They are all,however, bound in one way or another by theeconomic constraints of production. There isconsequently an area of tension located preciselyover issues of representation which requiresinvestigation. Finally, given that the aim of thiskind of video production is to achieve results withan audience rather than gratify the vanity oraesthetic senses of its commissioners andproducers, it is important to ask how far this endmight be realised.

Defining the Field

The term 'trade union video' needs a certain amountof explanation. The 'video' part of the term isused in tt?is paper to refer to a means ofreproduction. There are numerous arouments amongstprogramme producers as to the relative merits ofcelluloid film and magnetic tape for .programmegeneration. These have some importance' but are notproperly my current concern. Thus a t=ape likePresenting the TGJJIJ ,produced for the TGWU byRadcomm, was 'in fact shot on 16mm film but itscrucial difference from an earlier TGWU film on thesame subject is that the current work is availableon videocassette and is for sale, for £5 a copy, toall members of the TGWU. It is, as we shall see,the 'way in which video allows new means ofcirculation that forms one of the key questionsabout its trade union application.

The 'trade union' part of the-term is rather morecomplex. At least since the Webbs it has beenrecognised that trade unions are not homogeneousbodies. According to the founding Fabians, thedevelopment of stable trade unions in the course ofthe nineteenth century had led to growth of a layerOf full time union functionaries who were markedlydifferent from the members of -the union they

. represented both in social position and inpsychology. As the Webbs put it:

Trade Union Video

4

Page 5: ERIC · DOCUMENT RESUME ED 294 549 IR 013 094 AUTHOR Sparks, Colin TITLE Trade Union Users of Video. PUB DATE Jul 86 NOTE 33p.; Paper presented at the International Television. Studies

Page 3

The actual government of the Trade UnionWorld rests exclusively in the hands of aclass apart, the salaried officers of thegreat societies....

The salaried official of a great tradeunion occupies a unique position. Hebelongs neither to the middle nor theworking class...

The promotion of a working man to theposition of a salaried brain workereffects a complete and sudden change inhis manner of life. Instead of workingevery day at a given task,he suddenlyfinds himself the master of his own time,with duties which, though laboriousenough, are indefinite, irregular, andeasily neglected.(Webb, 1920: 466=6'7)

The Webbs went on to quote at length from theaccount of an artisan engineer as to the nature ofthe social transformation which followed upon theposition of.full-time official. It was, of course,consi..erations of this order which led Michels toformulate his pessimistic conclusions as to theimpossibility of democratic control in workingclass organisations and, while that view is clearlya grotesque overstatement of the real historicaldevelopment it is clear that the tendency he

'located is one that is markedly present today. (Fora brief overview of the arguments, see Hyman,1973.)

While it is hardly likely that anyone wouldchallenge the existence and influence of this.'class apart', there is substantial debate as tothe nature and significance of this fact. ,The mostinfluential position is probably that atsociatedwith the Communist Party in the thirty-odd yearsafter 1945 and, since its effective collapse, withthose 'Broad Lefts' influenced by the supporters ofMilitant .. While much of the formal argumentationfor this position, and the most clear and coherentorganisational results, come from this sector ofthe political spectrum, it is important to rememberthat in practice it is a view shared by those tothe right of this position.This position arguesthat the key issue of trade union policy is notthat there is such a division between full timeofficers and members but that of which political

Trade Union Video

5

Page 6: ERIC · DOCUMENT RESUME ED 294 549 IR 013 094 AUTHOR Sparks, Colin TITLE Trade Union Users of Video. PUB DATE Jul 86 NOTE 33p.; Paper presented at the International Television. Studies

Page 4

line is supported by the officers. The other majorposition, associated with the Communist Party inits earliest years and today with the SocialistWorkers' Party, argues that the full-time officialsconstitute a layer with interests different anddistinct from the lay members: they are, in effect,a bureaucracy.

Clearly, a paper such as this neither can norshould attempt to argue the relative merits of eachposition, however these considerations do havecrucial relevance for issues of video. In thefirst place, many arguments for the importance oftrade union video begin from the claim that thereis a wide divergence of views between the officialsand the members which video production can help toovercome. Thus Barry Sherman, a leading figure inthe production of trade union videos, recentlybegan an article on the more general question oftrade union communications with the followingobservation:

The most significant victory that thetrade union movement has had in the pastsix years has been the overwhelming voteto continue the political funds in allthe unions which have ballotted. Althoughthis may not reflect a massive shift infundamental political sentiment, or'evenelectoral prospects, it has broken themould of union members ignoring therequests, orders, indeed statements madeto them, or on their behalf, by theirunions.(Sherman,1986)

The second way in which this division concerns usis in terms of the definition of what constitutes a'trade union video'. Those writings Which liewithin the tradition which sees officildom asrelatively unproblematic will tend to define tradeunion video and the problems associated with itwith those videos directly commissioned or used bythe official bodies of the unions. The traditionwhich stresses the bureaucratic nature of the tradeunion officials and sees their interests asdifferent to those of the rank-and-file willcertainly define trade union video much more

. widely. In this paper I propose to adopt thebroader definition since that allows the peculiarproblems encountered by the official video to be

Trade Union Video

Page 7: ERIC · DOCUMENT RESUME ED 294 549 IR 013 094 AUTHOR Sparks, Colin TITLE Trade Union Users of Video. PUB DATE Jul 86 NOTE 33p.; Paper presented at the International Television. Studies

Page 5

placed in perspective and, incidentally, allows usto discuss a number of videos which we would beobliged otherwise to imnore, most notably. thefamous Miners' Campaign Tapes.

It is also the case that, for our purposes, thenarrow definition gives us little purchase on oursubject. It must follow from a position whichargues that the political complexion of the unionofficials is a decisive question that differencesin politics lead to different forms of activity. Inthe field of trade union video this does not seemto be the case. While it is true that the extremeright of the movement, as represented by the EEPTU,does have a distinctive position, this is notgeneralised amongst all such unions. The EEPTU hasdevoted considerable resources to the training ofits members. in job-oriented skills, enjoys a high,

reputation amongst employ6rs for this work, anduses video, indeed video-disc, extensively .in suchcourses. At the time of writing it seems thatanother large right-wing union, the AUEW, is aboutto follow this lead. On the other hand, the UCW isundoubtedlya right-wing union but it has a highlydeveloped video programme, using various kinds ofmaterial, aimed Sr' the more general social andpolitical life of its membership, which .is oftencharacterised by considerable formal , innovation.This enthusiasm for video-is not, however,: a right-wing monopoly since NUPE, usually reckoned a left-wing union, is deeply involved in developing thiswork.

The fact that attitudes to trade union video,either for or against, cannot be correlated in anyserious way with the political line of particularunions is not, of course, conclusive proof of thefalsity of the view which stresses the politicalline of the officials. It might easily be arguedthat the area of video is not one in which such atheory applies since it is peripheral to, say, thecentral concerns of the union, in which thedifferentiation is significant. What the evidencedoes show is that this definition of the problem isof little or no use to us in this investigation andI shall therefor pursue the other, broaderperspective. As we shall see, a stress upon thedivergence between the position of the unionbureaucracy and that of the rank-and-file helps usto illuminate and understand a number of important

Trade Union Video

7

Page 8: ERIC · DOCUMENT RESUME ED 294 549 IR 013 094 AUTHOR Sparks, Colin TITLE Trade Union Users of Video. PUB DATE Jul 86 NOTE 33p.; Paper presented at the International Television. Studies

Page 6

aspects of the problem, in particular thoseconcerned with issues of control and distribution,as well as the relationship between the unions''commissioning editors' and the video-makers.

The Origins and Extent of Trade Union Video

It is possible to argue that trade union videoforms the largest single area of contemporaryradical video practice. A recent report found thatthere were then in circulation some 51 titles inthe category of 'Labour Movement', as compared with39 in 'Social Welfare', 27 in 'Women's Issues' and21 in 'Youth'. Not only were there more of thesevideos in existenc7: but they were also more likelyto be widely distributed than any others. Theaverage sale per title for those in the category,

'Labour Movement' was 31 tapes. The next highestwas 'Youth' with 30. Of the other categoriesmentioned above 'Social Welfare' sold an average of4 and 'Women's Issues' 2 (Davey and Dungey,1985:Table One). Sales is not the same measure asaudience size, so it is difficult to tell fromthese figures the extent to which the heavydominance of labour movement titles was in factreproduced in the number of people seeing.them. Itdoes, however, seem probable that the much-mali3nedmarket does in this instance reflect :somethingabout demand for these videos. On the other hand,it is important to remember that while thesenumbers may seem fairly large, they form a verysmall part of the total of video productions. Morenarrowly, the trade unions and associated labourmovement bodies command much less funding thantheir employers and have spent very much less onvideo production.

1

There are a number of ways in which this relativelylarge number of prodUctions can be analysed but itis particularly helpful in understanding. the wyasin which trade union video has developed to look atthe different sources from which trade unions haveobtained videos.

There are three possible sources for trade unionvideos. The first, generation by anotherorganisation for another purpose, for examplebroadcast programmes either taped (illegally) off

Trade Union Video

8

Page 9: ERIC · DOCUMENT RESUME ED 294 549 IR 013 094 AUTHOR Sparks, Colin TITLE Trade Union Users of Video. PUB DATE Jul 86 NOTE 33p.; Paper presented at the International Television. Studies

Page 7

air by individual members of the union or purchasedby the union for showing to their members, isrelatively unprobl,'Iatic from the point of view ofrelations inside tnE union and between the unionand the producers. However, the fact that a greatdeal of the material is in fact generated bybroadcasting organisations does have importantconsequences. 'Broadcast quality' is undoubtedlyone of the most fetishized terms in the world ofvideo but it does relate to the central question ofcost. Many trade union officials will refer to thefact that their members' views on what constitutesan acceptable standard,of production are formed bythe prevailing, . very expensive, standards ofbroadcast television. The purchase of such materialby the union for their own use is, it is argued by,for example, Reagan Scott (TGWU National Secretaryfor Research and Education), an important and cost

'effective part of the training work of the TGWU. Italso sets the standards by which the union's ownvideo productions should be judged and thus ensuresthat any decision to use such techniques will haveto be taken at the highest levels of the union; inthe case pf the TGWU, by Reagan Scott. Thisargument as to the membership: - `...rejection of workthat does not reproduce at least an approximationto broadcast standard is used very frequently, bothby union officials and by programme producers, in anumber of contexts. The sense in which it:allows anapparently neutral justification for the retentionof an important avenue of communication in thehands of the union officials is the one thatconcerns us here, but this point will also recur indiscussions of appropriate aesthetic strategies.

The second source of trade union videos is fromwork generated independently of the unionstructures, say by a video workshop, bubdirectedspecifically at trade union members. Sometimes, aswith the The Miners' Campaign Tapes these may betaken up by the officials of the union or unions inquestion but in other instances they may simplyfind an audience through unofficial networks in theunions. This scoIrce is important for those groupsof video producers who wish to address unionmembers in ways independent of some of theparticular problems encountered in work with full-time officials and we will have to return to itlater.

Trade Union Video

Page 10: ERIC · DOCUMENT RESUME ED 294 549 IR 013 094 AUTHOR Sparks, Colin TITLE Trade Union Users of Video. PUB DATE Jul 86 NOTE 33p.; Paper presented at the International Television. Studies

Page 8

The third source is those videos directly producedas a result of commissions and funding from theunions. It is around these that the centralarguments about control and distribution are mostoften focussed. This is a relatively recentdevelopment in Britain, although it has a longerand richer history in the USA (Peers and Richards,1986). In Britain, the major development has beensince 1984 although there are instances, forexample the IRSF, of unions using videos beforethis.

The reason for this recent and somewhat rapid shiftis the matter of some debate. One view, held bysome producers in the field, for example BirminghamTrade Union Resources Centre (TURC, 1985) and JoelCayford of Team Video (Cayford, 1985) is that thedevelopment of trade union video is a direct andnecessary response to the increasing use of videoby management. As Cayford puts it:

Management have exploited gaps in tradeunion communication links by talkingdirectly to the workforce in order tochange their attitudes....

These initiatives are often part of'company communications' or 'employeecommunications' strategies, wheremanagement ignote or replace trade wlionlines of communication in order to beable to directly influence the workforce.The grapevine is seen as a graSsrootshotline which co-exists between tradeunion and management messages. One of themanagement's aims is to influence thegrapevine so it lends credibility to .the

management line. It is in this contextthat management have made effective Ltse

of video and other communicationstechniques. (Cayford: 5-6)

While it is undoubtedly true that management doattempt this kind of intervention in union opinionformation, and true also that they are prepared todevote relatively substantial resources to usingvideo in this process, there is substantialevidence which suggests that this is not themotivation for increasing trade union use of video.In the first place, I have not been able to find

Trade Union Video

10

Page 11: ERIC · DOCUMENT RESUME ED 294 549 IR 013 094 AUTHOR Sparks, Colin TITLE Trade Union Users of Video. PUB DATE Jul 86 NOTE 33p.; Paper presented at the International Television. Studies

Page 9

one single instance in which a trade union hasproduced a video in order to counter one from themanagement. Secondly, the majority of those videoswhich I have seen have been devoted to more generalcampaigning questions across the membership ratherthan being focuzsed on the action of one particularmanagement, although this may simply reflect thefact that my research to date "as involved agreater degree of attention to public sector unions:which tend to confront fewer employers. Thirdly,the evidence of a development of video as aresponse to an initiative by the 'other side' whichI do have, and it is admittedly limited to theInland Revenue and the Civil Service Commissioners,is that of management responding to a prior use ofvideo by the union. For instance, Tony Christopher(General Secretary of the IRSF) used the

,possibility of a future use of video by the InlandRevenue to argue, unsuccesfully, for an enormousextension of his union's already existing videoactivities (IRSF, 1984. The conference rejected hisview on the grounds of cost.)

If the view. that trade union videos are a responseto management initiatives is wrong, the view thatthey should be, which is the other possibleinterpretation of the Cayford passage, seems evenmore mistaken. In the first place such a strategywould surrender the initiative' for areas ofdiscussion to the management as a matter ofprinciple. There is already a severe structuralimbalance in terms of the ability to define aframework of debate built into the capital-labourrelation without the labour side of things adoptingthat imbalance as a determinant beyond which itwill not go. More importantly and concretely,managements deploy vastly more resources thanunions and it is an idle flream to hope to' be ableto match them: taken seriously the 'responsestrategy would require unions to gear themselves,financially and organisationally, to a very highlevel of production efficiency, one tied both tothe normal timetable of collective bargaining andto the exigencies of industrial life, over, in thecase of unions involved in the private sector, alarge number of employers. It is difficult to seehow one can justify the sort of resources thatwould be needed to produce Panorama from PeckhamRoad.

Trade Union Video

Page 12: ERIC · DOCUMENT RESUME ED 294 549 IR 013 094 AUTHOR Sparks, Colin TITLE Trade Union Users of Video. PUB DATE Jul 86 NOTE 33p.; Paper presented at the International Television. Studies

Page 10

The alternative explanation for the timing andnature of the union move into video is that it is aresponse to a more general crisis of tradeunionism. This is the view held by, for example,Beryl Richards of Smith-Bundy Video, anothlr majorsupplier of trade union videos. She argues that onthe one hand the period since the early 1970's hasseen a retreat by the'trade unions, with problemsof falling membership, ineffective organisation andstate-orchestrated public hostility to their aims.On the other hand there has been a increasingawareness by union officers of their relations withthe media and the possibilities of new and cheapermedia technologies. This has led to the increasinguse of video as a positive weapon in the attempt toalter the situation,,

This explanation seems much more convincing. Muchof the work that has been done so far by and fortrade unions has been concerned with generalproblems facing the unions and has been designed toachieve support for union-initiated campaigns.These, of course, do no z%ist i r. a vacuum but arejesponses to real di eiculties usually onescreated by the employers and the state, but theterms of debate have in general been set by theunions. An example of this is the campaian to winballots for the political levy which h'as been animportant feature of trade union life over the lasttwelve months. This was a problem set for theunions by the government and the terms of thedebate were set, in general terms, by thegovernment and the media, but the union leadershipshad substantial freedom both in the timing of thevotes and in the precise character of the debates.There was considerable use of video in the variouscampaigns. The TUC's own Trade Union Co-or.dinatingCommittee made two videos of its own for'e generaldistrib:ction, Say Yes to a Voice and A Questionof Democracy . Some individual unions producedtheir own videos for the campaign, of which theIRSF's Business as Usual? is the best-knownexample. Overall the campaign was a massive successwith all the unions which ballotted producingsubstantial votes in favour of retaining politicalfunds. Some for example the IRSF, showed massiveandl to the outsider, quite unexpected majoritiesin favour.

the point of view of the commissioning

Trade Union Vi leo

12

Page 13: ERIC · DOCUMENT RESUME ED 294 549 IR 013 094 AUTHOR Sparks, Colin TITLE Trade Union Users of Video. PUB DATE Jul 86 NOTE 33p.; Paper presented at the International Television. Studies

Page 11

organisations, none of the officers I interviewedadvanced the view that their move into video wasthe result of a need to respond to management useof video. All of them located their union's work asthe result of long-term developments in the needsof the union, often identified as the result ofextensive research and debi.te.

To take an example of this, the SCPS has overrecent years suffered membership loss, partly as aresult of cuts in civil service numbers and partlyas a result of an inability to recruit new entrantsto their grades. As a response to thesedifficulties the union commissioned a review of allaspects of the life of the union from theDepartment of Sociology at the University ofWarwick (Drake et. a1.,1982). Following from this,the union's Finance and Organisation Committeebegan discussion of the problem of recruitment andin September 1964 approved a paper from LeslieManasseh which argued the case for a videoproduction aimed primarily at recruitment. One ofthe many interesting aspects of this document, andone which tends to confirm Richards' view that theincreasing 'media awareness' of trade unionists isan important element in the move towards video, isthat the paper argues its case very much in termsof the political nature of representation:

The government has succeeded inconstructing and sustaining an image oftrade unions as inimical to the nationalinterest and to the interests ofindividual workers....

The problem we face is not one ofrational opposition, but rather of

hostility and apathy based upon mistakenperceptions and prejudices about tradeunions. As such the issue is one ofpresentation and communication....we needto recapture the ground that has beentaken from us and rebuild a positive,constructive image of the Society.

It is in this context that we shouldconsider using video.(Manasseh, 1984:1-3.Original emphasis. In fairness I shouldpoint out that the paper goes on todiscuss management use of video, albeit

Trade Union Video

3

Page 14: ERIC · DOCUMENT RESUME ED 294 549 IR 013 094 AUTHOR Sparks, Colin TITLE Trade Union Users of Video. PUB DATE Jul 86 NOTE 33p.; Paper presented at the International Television. Studies

Page 12

in general terms.)

It seems, then, on balance, that factors derivedfrom the general economic and social climate aremost important in prompting unions to becomeinvolved in video production and that the majorityof videos so far produced address general issuesrather than particular situations.

The Functions of Trade Union Video

Discussions of this order tend inevitably to spillover into questions of function, and it is to thesethat we must now turn. With the single exception ofthe TGWU's recent Advertisement , which wasproduced and broadcast without even the degree ofresearch which would go into the construction of anormal commercial advertisement, trade union videosare made with a very precise concern _to audienceand function. This factor, a sharp contrast--to thenotion of the imputed aggregate viewer thatdominates broadcast production and the perhapsrather cavalier attitude to audience which hasoften characterised avant garde work, is one ofthe factors which make this work of potentialinterest to those whose concern with trade unionsmight otherwise be somewhat limited. .

The most obvious function of trade union videos'lies in the field of campaigning. We have alreadylooked very briMlny at the political funo campaignand it is indeed the case that the IRSF video, forexample, was constructed after minute research intothe nature of the problems facing IRSF members andinto the nature of that membership itself. Threethings stand out about Business as Usual? . In thefirst place it was produced according to anaesthetic which stresses the importance 'of using'ordinary members' to put the case. As Joel Cayfordargues it:

In a trade union the most effectiveleaflets, broadsheets and journals areones which articulate what members arefeeling. It is the members who are intouch with the problems. It is themc:mbers who know what is happening....

...those trade unionists with experiences

Trade Union Video

14

Page 15: ERIC · DOCUMENT RESUME ED 294 549 IR 013 094 AUTHOR Sparks, Colin TITLE Trade Union Users of Video. PUB DATE Jul 86 NOTE 33p.; Paper presented at the International Television. Studies

Page 13

to share should be able to communicatewidely with other members so their debatecan be reflected and carried forward onpaper, on video and in meetings.(Cayford:21-2)

In line with this view, the argument of Business asUsual? is entirely, carried by rank-and-filemembers of the union.

Despite echoes, no doubt conscious, of The Ontologyof the Photographic Image in some of thearguments put forward by the video-makers, it wouldbe a mistake to believe that this style of workguarantees the authenticity and truth of the work.The second distinctive feature of this video, whichcuts across all of the intention to allow theordinary member to speak, is the desire and the'need to select speakers who put the 'right' case inthe 'right' way; these definitions are, of course,provided by the union leadership and, to a lesserextent, by the video-makers. In this instance,there was a desire to reflect the membership :1-f the

IRSF, and .in line with that the speakers arelargely female. The care in selecting images and.arguments which fit the union leadership'sknowledge of, or at least beliefs about, themembership is an central feature of this' kind ofwork.

The third distinctive aspect of the video is theway in which it was shown. Business as Usual? wasvery much part of a campaign and it was linked into the other aspects of the campaign very .closely.Thus the first showing of the video was as part ofa conference of those union activists who wouldhave to carry the arguments in the work-place. Onlywhen it had been 'test shown' and seen to bevaluable was it put on 'general release'. : When itwent out it was accompanied with a foldercontaining seven items: four of these were'Briefing Notes' explaining the arguments about thecampaign, the mechanics of organising a" showing,advice on how to lead a discussion after theshowing, and the background to the video; two otheritems were publicity, being a poster for themeeting and a leaflet summarising the union's case;the final item was an expenses form (IRSF,1985).

This extremely impressive documentary support is

Trade Union Video

15

Page 16: ERIC · DOCUMENT RESUME ED 294 549 IR 013 094 AUTHOR Sparks, Colin TITLE Trade Union Users of Video. PUB DATE Jul 86 NOTE 33p.; Paper presented at the International Television. Studies

Page 14

certainly unusually well developed for trade unionvideo but it is indicative of the general trend.Thus the SCPS video referred to above, MembershipMatters , comes with a booklet giving the casehistories that appear in the video in rather moredetail. The reason for this is th--t it is generallythought that the function of a vi, o tape, at leastin a campaign context,' is to act as a stimulus fordiscussion and that the participants needadditional material in order to make such anactivity worthwhile. Trade Union videos are, asRoger Kline of TURC put it, 'trigger tapes' thatare designed to link into other activities.

The final point which the IRSF tape illustrates isthat of exhibition. The majority of campaign tapesaimed at union members find difficulty in reachingtheir audience. Despite some efforts to develop anetwork through the homes of members,_either-individually or via the collective 'Tupperwareparty' model most often advanced by the UCW, theworkplace is the favoured site of exhibition. Thefirst tape produced by the IRSF was welcomed intothe workplace by management, perhaps because itargued the case for the acceptance of newtechnology. With the political fund.....campaign,however, the management adopted a position ofextreme hostility, even attempting to prevent theactual ballot taking place in the offices andrefusing to allow either rooms or equipment to beused for showi6g the video. Jim McAuslan (IRSFEducation, Training and Campaigns Officer)estimates that because of this pressure only some40 to 45 per cent of the union's membership got tosee the video during the campaign. He thereforetends to the view that while the video wasimportant in the campaign it was not vital,, and isaccordingly slightly sceptical of of the moremessianic claims made for the efficacy of video.

A second major function of trade union video is thetraining and education of the members. As mentionedpreviously, some unions use video for the trainingof their members in work-skills. This raises adifferent order of questions and I will not bediscussing it here. More normal is the use of videoin the training of- members in union proceedures,

. their general education and in informing them aboutthe services the union provides for its members.Here the problems of viewing do not take so sharp a

Trade Union Video

16

Page 17: ERIC · DOCUMENT RESUME ED 294 549 IR 013 094 AUTHOR Sparks, Colin TITLE Trade Union Users of Video. PUB DATE Jul 86 NOTE 33p.; Paper presented at the International Television. Studies

Page 15

form since the majority of such education will takeplace in an educational enviroment, usually well-provided with audio-visual aids and free frommanagement harrassment. Such videos tend to be evenmore tightly tied not only to a conception of theirintended audience but also to a precise curriculumof union training. This is less marked with the useof externally generated videos, which probably formthe majority of such material together with theunquantifiable and ephemeral tapes made to teachunion members the wiles of television performance,but is very marked with those produced specificallyfor the purpose.

Thus the CPSA's Uhat's My Line? ,a parody of the TVshow cf that name, is designed to be used intraining branch officials in their responsibilitiesand Jane Hustwit (CPSA National Organiser) is mostreluctant to allow the video to be viewed outsideof that context. Her view is that withoutcontextualisation the grotesque parody of a certaintype of female TV pala,1-game performer, designed tocontrast with the very different image of the unionofficial and thus to provoke discussion aboutsexism, can be, and indeed has been, interpreted asitself sexism.

The video is based on the panel show itself, withvarious recognisable 'types' attempting :to guessthat the contestant is a union official. Theirmistaken guesses provide the starting-point fordepartures into a subjective discourse in which theofficial imagines how well or badly the ascribedrole fits her actual situation. The tape isdesigned to be interrupted a number of times toallow a small group discussion of the various'points the drama raises. (It is also very funny.)

This type of work cannot be assimilated into theessentially documentary aesthetic we discussedabove and it raises the question of how far thetrade u;-,ton officials who commission these videosare bound by aesthetic conservatism. The answer, inmy view, is that they are ready to experiment witha number of forms. The CPSA, again, quite happilycombines cartoons with talking heads in It's AboutTime , intended to stimulate women's involvment inthe union, as does the NUJ recruitment videoJournalists' Union and the NALGOsponsored Rights?Uot Rights? and Rights Not Wrongs , aimed at

Trade Union Video

17

Page 18: ERIC · DOCUMENT RESUME ED 294 549 IR 013 094 AUTHOR Sparks, Colin TITLE Trade Union Users of Video. PUB DATE Jul 86 NOTE 33p.; Paper presented at the International Television. Studies

Page 16

interesting young people on government trainingschemes in trade unions .

These last-mentioned tapes, aimed at recruitingnon-members into unions, raise the third major areaof trade unions videos: those concerned to presentthe union to outsiders. Here many of the sameconsiderations apply, particularly with regard toaudiences. Thus the Rail Federation group of unionsproduced a video The Case For Rail which was aimedat 'opinion leaders' (MP's, businessmen and suchlike), which adopts a very authoritative tone anduses all of the tricks of broadcast TV to disguiseadvocacy as reporting. A different approach wasadopted by NALGO in their 1983 campaign againstcuts and privatisation: they commissioned threevideos re-working basically the same material butaimed at different audiences. One was aimed- at-union members, one at public-sector decision makersand one at the general public; all were titled PutPeople First . According to NALGO's own assessment,the attempt did not work perfectly and the videoaddressed to the general public needed to beradically different in form:'It needed to be moreof a "commercial" for the public services (andincidentally for NALGO).(NALGO,n.d.E1984 ?3:16).

Another example of this careful tail'oring comesfrom the above mentioned tapes aimed at r:ecruitingyoung people. According to Dave Rushton of TUITV,another programme provider in the field, the choiceof cartoons and cartoonist for these videos wasbased on the reasoning that the best place to reachthe target audience was when they were having theirstatutory educational sessions. Thus teachers werethe key 'gatekeepers' in deciding whether to showthe videos. Teachers read The Guardian , thereforeuse Steve Bell for the animation.

1

Overall, then, it seems that trade union videos aremarked by a variety of styles from the mostorthodox TV presentations through .to quiteinnovative 41., xtures of forms. These aestheticchoices are not undertaken blindly or throughprejudice but through a very close and detailedattention to the target audiences.

. Reaching these audiences, however, is more of aproblem. While the use vf video in union organisedtraining is relatively unproblematic, other

Trade Union Video

18

Page 19: ERIC · DOCUMENT RESUME ED 294 549 IR 013 094 AUTHOR Sparks, Colin TITLE Trade Union Users of Video. PUB DATE Jul 86 NOTE 33p.; Paper presented at the International Television. Studies

Page 17

enviroments have grave problems. There is a generalsense among the trade unionists I have spoken tothat the workplace is the ideal site . forcollectively viewing videos, but any such activityis naturally dependent upon management consent.This might be given on three grounds: generosity,which is hardly a reliable basis for organisationin the present climate; union strength in theworkplace, which does not seem to be verywidespread at the present moment; managementagreement to the message of the video, which seemsto limit the purpose and potential of the videounduly. It is therefore unlikely that it will beeasy to integrate yideos into regular workplacelife. On the other hand, videos associated withspecific campaigns, in which special meetings areorganised which command higher than the normal

.attendence, can command a larger audience. Thealternative to this sort of collective viewing isthe establishment of the sort of distributionnetwork which can reach members at home. While thismight be possible it would transform the nature ofthe video from a tape designed to triggerdiscussion .to one designed to be received in thesame conditions as any other form of TV.

Tensions and Alternatives

So far we have assumed that the question ofproducing trade union videos is a relativelyunproblematic activity in which an activecommissioner in the trade union leadership issuesunproblematic instructions to video producers togenerate a message which will go from 'the union''to its members. This is certainly the tone of muchof the writing and thinking about the field. Itmarks the Sherman piece cited above (Sherman was atrade union official with ASTMS for many years),and it is undoudtedly one of the attractions ofvideo that it bears very strong marks of being one-way communication. The commissioner, whoevercontrols the funds, decides what will be said andhow it will be said and there is not even the lastsad recourse of the union activist, the letterspage of the union journal, to answer back with.From this perspective one can see how it enablesthe union leadership to concentrate message-generation even more firmly in their own hands and

Trade Union Video

19

Page 20: ERIC · DOCUMENT RESUME ED 294 549 IR 013 094 AUTHOR Sparks, Colin TITLE Trade Union Users of Video. PUB DATE Jul 86 NOTE 33p.; Paper presented at the International Television. Studies

Page 18

ensure that it reaches the target audienceunmediated by the views of the lay activists.Writing of trade union journals, a recent scholarlystudy nicely caught the attitude of the unionofficial:

In the ideal situation the fullestexchange of infbrmation at all levelswithin a trade union is desirable.Members should be able to easily informthemselves of the activities of theleadership through the publication offull reports and informative minutes ofexecutive decisions. In many unions thecirculation of such reports is more thanadequate and interested members arereasonably well informed as to that isgoing on.

But what about the bulk of members whoare largely inactive? It would be verydifficult to say how effective the formalcommunication channels are below branchlevel.. However, Sarah Monk's study of theTGWU's communications in Coventry (1969)points to severe deficiencies from thepoint of view of the union's leadership.Shp concludedthat these deficiencies hadled to the development of. a largelyinformal parallel system provided by theshop floor representatives. Thecircumstances strongly suggest that sucha situation exit ts in most 'unions,especially those organising workers, inseveral industries, scattered throughoutthe country. While they are probably moreeffective they cannot guarantee thefactual or accurate transmission of ideasand information emanating from unionheadquarters.

The other major soc-ce of unioninformation mentioned by members tradeunion journals offers national unionheadquarters a far .'. more directcommunication channel with its rank andfile. They thus represent a more reliablemeans by which national union policies,ideas, information and concerns can betransmitted without interpretation or

Trade Union Video

20

Page 21: ERIC · DOCUMENT RESUME ED 294 549 IR 013 094 AUTHOR Sparks, Colin TITLE Trade Union Users of Video. PUB DATE Jul 86 NOTE 33p.; Paper presented at the International Television. Studies

X

Page 19

misunderstanding by intermediaries.(Rice, 1984:33)

We return here to the notion of their being adivision between the bureaucracy and the rank-and-file. In the view of the bureaucracy, it isimportant to retain control of message generationand transmission. What little writing there isabout trade union communications usually assumesthis as an unquestioned given but one of the fewstudies to give it any critical attention foundthat very few editors of union journals wereelected to their posts. The difference betweenappointment and election seemed to make asignificant difference in the way in which theseeditors viewed their primary responsibility: the

...norm was to the other officials and the GeneralSecretary in particular (Grace, 1935).

There is therefore room for tension between thebureaucracy, which wishes to retain control ofcommunications in its own hands and the activistswho have traditionally played a role in this areaand who glight wish to use it to generatealternative messages. The only case of thatpotential-conflict finding formal expression that Iknow of is the above mentioned conference decisionby the IRSF, but since such conflicts arecommonplace in other aspects of union life there isevery reason to suppose that they are likely tooccur frequently here, too.

Informal conflict poses different problems. Thereis a considerable awareness amongst the unionofficials to whom I have spoken of the dangers ofmembers grumbling about this use of union funds,'but such an activity is unlikely to lead to anyserious alternatives. Much more organised!has beenthe attempt by activists to find alternatives tothe official videos generated by the unions.

My research has only uncovered one 'do- it- yourself'attempt to generate alternative or supplementarymessages entirely from within a trade union: thatat Camden NALGO (where else?). Here Kate Lord, theNALGO Branch Education Officer, had previousexperience of using off-air recordings to stimulateinterest in section meetings and has attempted toset up a small-scale, VHS-based, video productionunit financed from her Branch budget. The eight

Trade Union Video

21

Page 22: ERIC · DOCUMENT RESUME ED 294 549 IR 013 094 AUTHOR Sparks, Colin TITLE Trade Union Users of Video. PUB DATE Jul 86 NOTE 33p.; Paper presented at the International Television. Studies

Page 20

union members involved (five female, three male)all described themselves, very vociferously, asunion activists. One of them had prior experienceof video production, having worked in-that area forCamden Social Services. They were attempting to puttogether a local newsreel at the time of writing,using both national events (the Wapping dispute,the local elections) and more local issues. likelocal Health and Saftey matters. This fascinatingand impressive effort is very much in its earlydays and it is difficult to say whether it willprosper. Already Jerry Rothwell, the member withexperience of video-production, was concerned aboutqustions of quality with VHS work. It will beinteresting see how far this problem can be solved.

The Camden circumstances, however, seem unusual.Much more common are attempts by trade unionsctivists to work with outside video producers togenerate oppositional messages, and it is at thispoint that questions of relations between videoproviders and unions become crucial. We have, sofar, assumed that the providers of videos are ahomogenous group. In so far as they are all workingfor union, this is true, but in fact there are verywide diveregences of background, philosopKy, styleand almost everything else between them.

The least problematic relations are.probably thosebetween the effectively commerical companies andthe union leaders. Union commissions are treated byorganisations like Diverse Developments as a clientin the same way as any other client. Decisions asto production style etc. are taken upon .strictlyprofessional lines: thus the decision to use afemale production team and Ann Mitchell aspresenter in Time For Justice was !)ased, on thebelief that this was the best way to roach theHealth Service ancillary workers at whom 'it wasaimed. According to Richard Bunning, Diverse use TVconventions because they are familiar and thestatus of a trade union video is the same as thesigned reports on Diverse' . The crucial decisionsabout the content of the video come from thecommissioners.

Rather more diversity is to be found amongst thosecommerical companies who work specifically for theLabour Movement and kindred bodies. They argue thata company that works for managers one day and for

Trade Union Video

22

Page 23: ERIC · DOCUMENT RESUME ED 294 549 IR 013 094 AUTHOR Sparks, Colin TITLE Trade Union Users of Video. PUB DATE Jul 86 NOTE 33p.; Paper presented at the International Television. Studies

Page 21

unions the next cannot hope to do justice toeither. However, while some of the companies, likeTeam, have strongly-held aesthetic views, they areeven more financially dependent upon continuingcommissions than are the first group and thereforeare unable to do more than offer 'professionalcriticisms' of the i.deas that are presented tothem. They do claim,' however, to be able to stopthe General Secretary talking to camera for twentyminutes.

The third group are those organisations whosestrategy involves attempts to avoid the relativelytight grasp of the bureaucracy. It was of relationswith this group that Chris Cossey, Head of Pressand Publicity for NALGO, said;'There will always betensions but it is important that the client's willprevails'.

The most dramatic instaNce of this will prevailingoccurred in a relation between the TGWU and ForumTV of Bristol. The TGWU commission Forum to make ashort recruitment tape aimed at young people. Theresulting type mixed a staged drama with interviewswith young TGWU members. The ,TGWU, or rather ReaganScott, objected most strongly to the tape, No .

Experience Needed . He insisted on re-editing and athe shooting of .additional material and theresulting tape is known as Day One . Apart frombeing five minutes shorter, the shop steward hasdisappeared from the dramatic sections as has onekey reference to her role. According to ReaganScott, this was because these sections wereobjectionable. However that may be, the result hasbeen to remove all reference to the union defending,its members from arbitrary management practices, orin any way being concerned with conflict, from therelease version. According to Scott: 'The workshoppeople do not ht.;ve an adequate understanding of themeeds of their clients.'

Most clashes seem to have been rather less dramaticthan this: distribution difficulties for un-favoured tapes is one mechanism of disapproval.However, there is sufficient awareness of theseproblems amongst independent producers to make someof them search for alternatives. It is at this

. point that arguments about 'broadcast quality'become of crucial importance since to produce tapeswhich in any way approach such standards one

Trade Union Video

9 3

Page 24: ERIC · DOCUMENT RESUME ED 294 549 IR 013 094 AUTHOR Sparks, Colin TITLE Trade Union Users of Video. PUB DATE Jul 86 NOTE 33p.; Paper presented at the International Television. Studies

Page 22

requires very substantial funding and this meanseither union officials or some form of subsidy fromelsewhere. The more rigidly one adheres to thesestandards, the more squarely one confronts thedilemma. So, for example, Dave Rushton is a strong -

advocate of broadcast quality, arguing: By usingbroadcast quality for our programmes, weimmediately gain access to television as a possibleextra means of distribution'(Swain, 1986:39). Inpractice this has meant attempts to find ways ofgaining finance from Channel Four or working withlower levels of the bureaucracy. Thus Mapping Lieswas financed by the Campaign for Press andBroadcasting Freedom, effectively the creature oflower levels of the print union bureaucracy. Theresult does not seem to be an increased freedom tocomment: the video simply reproduces the line ofthe national officials and makes no suggestions asto how the dispute might be advanced.

Another strategy, best developed by Trade Films inthe Niii-th East, is to attempt to try to carry someof the fixed costs of video production on adiversified production base while gaining someextra financial support from regionaltrade union organisations, who in return get a.,

voice in editorial control. This is a strategywhich is closely related to arguments aboutregional film culture which we cannot pursue here,but from the point of view of purely trade unionvideos it is unfortunately difficult to see it as

-.viable.

There are two related questions here. The chosenform is suggested by the title:Northern Newsreels.This type of production is determined by thefrequency of its appearence: in this .instancequarterly. Such an interval has meant that theagitational emphasis, reporting events and givingtelephone numbers for action in support of tradeunion and related struggles, has had to be dropped.The first two pilots appeared after many of theevents they advertised were over. The first full-scale effort is thus much more removed fromimmediacy, dealing with less 'newsy' material likeoral history of the working class movement andcontaining a dramatised critique of TV newsreporting. .The items are fewer and longer than inearlier tapes and there is only one address ortelephone number, that of the Labour Party in

Trade Union Video

Page 25: ERIC · DOCUMENT RESUME ED 294 549 IR 013 094 AUTHOR Sparks, Colin TITLE Trade Union Users of Video. PUB DATE Jul 86 NOTE 33p.; Paper presented at the International Television. Studies

Page 23

Walworth Road, in connection with Red Hedge . Whileone can see substantial reasons on the grounds ofregional cultural policy for trade unionssupporting this venture, it is difficult to see howit has in fact opened a space for work that theunions would be otherwise unprepared to support.

We may note in passing that the idea of a newsreelhas been quite widely canvassed in the movement.The IRSF rejected such a proposal from theconsultants EPIC (see EPIC, 1983:7.4. IRSF,n.d.C19843:16), and very recently the BFIProduction Board refused funding for a project fromFilms at Work to be based in East London.

The second problem arises directly out of thefinancial demands of the form. A more regularbulletin would require larger sums of money,certainly more than local unions could generate andthus, lead once again back into the arms of the verynational bureaucracy that the scheme tries toavoid. Again, even with cross-subsidies, the sumsof money involved are not those generally availableto rank-and-file activists. In fact, the money thathas been raised has come from local officials, andit is by no means evident that these people arequalitatively more open to funding different andpotentially uncontrollable messages than theirnational brothers and sisters. Indeed; in both ofthe cases, NALGO and NUPE, where money has beenprovided this has been with the agreement of thenational officials and in the two key cases whereit has not been forthcoming, the TGWU and theGMBATU, this has been the result of action bynational officials. Amber, the other largd workshopin the area, withdrew from joint discussions of

this project at an early stage precisely for thereason that it would be controlled by the localbureaucracy, although it must be said that it isnot at all clear that their own project for workingwith shop stewards' committees to produce localcampaign tapes can develop as a viable alternativeeither. It does not seem that there is anysimple and regular way of making trade union videoswhich avoids the desire of the bureaucracy tocontrol what goes on. This control is much morelikely to be over questions of political contentthan over formal innovation: the CPSA video What'sMy Line is remarkable both for its formalinnovation and for the fact that it seeks to train

Trade Union Video

25

Page 26: ERIC · DOCUMENT RESUME ED 294 549 IR 013 094 AUTHOR Sparks, Colin TITLE Trade Union Users of Video. PUB DATE Jul 86 NOTE 33p.; Paper presented at the International Television. Studies

Page 24

union officials without once mentioning management.Des Freedman of Films at Work argues that:'If youretain editorial and political control you areunliPcly to get funding from trade unionofficials'.

This rather pessimistic conclusion needs somequalification. In the first place the bureaucracyoften need to rely on the activists to achievecertain ends and this is sometimes reflected in theproduction of videos. For example, it is very oftenthe rank and file who get to speak in that style ofvideo production that relies on people involvedwith the issues to expound them. Secondly there hasbeen, and may still be, a certain amount of fundingwhich does permit different per%pectives. Thus JohnDovey's Lo Pay No May 1 funded by the GLC, is aimedat young, largely black workers in fast food chainsJith a view to encouraging trade union membership.

Thirdly, and most importantly, all of the abovelimitations and qualifications are based upon what --we might term 'normal' class-relations. Theyreflect the reality that for long periods thebureaucrats.' image of themselvess the activeforce and the members as passive consumers doesbear "'some relationship to the reality of tradeunion life. It is not, however, the,whble oTEhetruth. There are periods in which the membershipare active, large scale strikes for instance, andin which the officials play a much more passiverole. In those circumstances the gap betweenbureaucracy and rank-and-file is most acute, andthey are also periods in whit. the function oftrade union video is potentially very different.

The outstanding example of this in the recent pastway the miners' strike. The Northern Film andTelevision Archive's Catalogue of videos :producedduring this dispute lists some 39 different tapeson different questions (NFTVA, forthcoming). Thesewere generated in a variety of different ways,from broadcast commissions to political parties.

The best known tapes of the period, The Miners'Campaign Videotapes , was the result of aremarkable level of collaboration and initiativeamongst radical film and video makers. As the NFVTACatalogue puts it:

Trade Union Video

26 _

Page 27: ERIC · DOCUMENT RESUME ED 294 549 IR 013 094 AUTHOR Sparks, Colin TITLE Trade Union Users of Video. PUB DATE Jul 86 NOTE 33p.; Paper presented at the International Television. Studies

Page 25

Programmes were planned collectively;material was shot by different groupswithin their own region then editedcentrally; finally the finishedprogrammes were sent back to the regionalorganisations for distribution. TheProject was financed by donations ofmoney, free publicity and free labour,together with income from distribution offinished tapes, with any surplus going tothe NUM Hardship Fund. This initiativerepresented a collective project of

independent film-makers working withlabour movement organisations on an

unprecedented scale. Some thousands of

copies of the programmes were distributedin videocassette form.(NFTVA:6)

,Clearly, this level of sacrifice and mobilisationcan no more be the norm of life in a capitalistsociety than could the miners' strike itself.However, it does demonstrate another method of

working and one which, while it was taken up by atleast some of the NUM area leaderships, originatedfrom the concerns of video makers and the demandsof rank-and-file miners. It also demonstrated a

quite different kind of distribution network: tradeunionists engaged in a struggle of that .magnitudewere very keen to use video and quite able to findways of getting tapes into the hands of thousandsof people. It is also important that the questionof quality was much less important here than it

would seem either from the claims of the unionofficials or some producers. It was not that thetapes themselves were not of a high quality; theywere. Rather, copies of VHS copies were circulated.and viewed avidly despite the poor quality suchreproductions involve. An audience is prepapred toput up wish quite considerable sacrifices of

quality if the material is what they 'find it

important to watch.

Excellent though the work produced in this periodwas, it is important to subject it to just the samedegree of critical scrutiny as the rest of thematerial we have reviewed. I would suggest that thebulk of this material was concerned to counter thedominant presentations of the miners' strike and tocelebrate what was a genuinely remarkable and , in

my view, heroic working class experience. We

Trade Union Video

27

Page 28: ERIC · DOCUMENT RESUME ED 294 549 IR 013 094 AUTHOR Sparks, Colin TITLE Trade Union Users of Video. PUB DATE Jul 86 NOTE 33p.; Paper presented at the International Television. Studies

Page '26

cannot, however, escape from the fact that it was aheroic defeat and therefore requires not onlycelebration but analysis. Some of the materialproduced during the dispute, notably Learning onthe Line did attempt this task but much did not.

There is, I think, an important reason for this:rank-and-file union activists and independent videomakers habitually occupy different places on thesocial spectrum. Outside of periods of 'crisis, orpurely professional links, there is little chanceof a serious interchange between the two groups.The result is that when the two groups are throwntogether by a crisis they lack the mutualconfidence and knowledge which makes for an easyinterchange of criticisms. Those forms oforganisation which do permit such an interchangeare primarily political parties and it seems to me-that membership of such a party is the finalcondition for constructing a trade union video thatwill be both independent of the bureaucracy andable to clarify the way to win a dispute.

Conclusion

Trade union video is clearly a large and expandingarea of non-broadcast video video work. It haslargely been developed by trade union leaderships,as a response to general political problems theyhave faced in the last decade. Contrary to somepopular accounts, these trade union officials arenot mindless and conservative philistines. Theyhave a very precise sense of the needs of their.members and are prepared to experiment withdifferent formal solutions to problems ofcommunication. However, at all times they have astrong interest in controlling the content of thematerial produced. Distribution of material otherthan that desinged for educational use poses verysevere problems and it seems that the use of tapesas part of general campaigns has been the mosteffective method.

Conflicts of interest within the union, and betweenthe union leaderships and video makers have ledsome trade unionists to look for alternative formsof practice. In normal circumstances most of the

Trade Union Video

28 :

Page 29: ERIC · DOCUMENT RESUME ED 294 549 IR 013 094 AUTHOR Sparks, Colin TITLE Trade Union Users of Video. PUB DATE Jul 86 NOTE 33p.; Paper presented at the International Television. Studies

Page 27

avenues tried are fraught with their owndifficulties.

In some circumstances, notably those of workingclass mobilisation it is possible to develop formsof practice which go beyond the limits laid down bythe officials. Even this, however, does not resolveall of the problems.. If one reflects upon thesiutation in the miner's' strike, or of Wapping atthe time of writing, it is obvious that it is notsimply a question of providing channels for therank-and-file to express themselves, to celebratetheir experience, valuable though that is. Theother +unction, surely, of any trade union videoshould be to help win a dispute. In that sensevideo workers who wish to be independent of therestrictions placed upon them by the bureaucracyneed not only financial and organisational space,but political space as well.

Note

I should like to thank Michelle Campbell +or herassistance with this work.

List of Source

All sources cited in the text are listed below,grouped under 'Printed works', 'Interviews' and'Tapes'.

Printed works

Cayford, J. (1985) Speak Up! Trade Union Responsesto New Management Communications . London: Comedia.

Dovey, J. and Dungey, J. (1985) The VideoactiveReport . London: Videoactive.

Drake, P., Fairbrother, P., Fryer, B. and StratfordG. (1982) A Programme for Union Democracy .

London:SCPS.

Trade Union Video

29

Page 30: ERIC · DOCUMENT RESUME ED 294 549 IR 013 094 AUTHOR Sparks, Colin TITLE Trade Union Users of Video. PUB DATE Jul 86 NOTE 33p.; Paper presented at the International Television. Studies

Page 28

Drinkwater, J. (1984) Get It On Radio andTelevision. London: Pluto.

EPIC (1983)Organisation, Communication and DecisionMaking in the IRSF London: Eric ParsloeIndustrial Communications.

Goodwin, A. (1985) 'Striking Contrasts' in Screen,26/5: 92 -102.

Goodwin, A. and Field, ,L (1985) 'Teaching MediaStudies to Trade Unionists' in The IndustrialTutor, 4/2: 31-41.

Grace, A.D. (1985) 'The Trade Union Press inBritain' in Media Culture and Society , 7/2:233-

Hyman,' R..(1971) Marxism and the Sociology of TradeUnionism . London: Pluto.

IRSF (n.d.C1984]) 'A Stronger and More DemocraticFederation' special issue of Federation Bulletin14.

---- (1985) Business as Usual? Why the IRSF Needs aPolitical Fund: Campaign Kit . London:IRSF.

MacShane, D. (1983) Using the Media . SecondEdition: London: Pluto.

Manasseh, L. (1984) Recruitment Vido . .SCPSpaper EC.1120/84 of 7 September 1984.

NALGO (n.d. [1984 '1,3) Defending the v"-Public.

Services. London; NALGO.

NFTVA (forthcoming) Catalogue of Video ,Materialfrom the Miners' Strike (published title maydiffer). Gateshead: NFTVA.

Peers, D. and Richards, B. (1986) 'The Medium GetsOver the Message' in New Statesman , 10 January1986.

Rice, C. (1984) Trade Union CommunicationsBirmingham: TURC.

Sherman, B.(Forthcoming) Union Communications

Trade Union Video

30

Page 31: ERIC · DOCUMENT RESUME ED 294 549 IR 013 094 AUTHOR Sparks, Colin TITLE Trade Union Users of Video. PUB DATE Jul 86 NOTE 33p.; Paper presented at the International Television. Studies

Page 29

(article - published title may differ).

Swain, R. (1986) 'Fighting back with a ManagementWeapon' in Audio Visual March 1986:37-40.

TUC (1979a) HON to Handle the Media .London: TUC.

(1979b) A Cause for. Concern . London: TUC.

--- (1980) The Truth Behind the Headlines . London:TUC.

-- (1931) Critical VieNing and Listening . London:TUC.

-- (n.d.C1985]) Guidelines for Trade Unions on theUse of Advertising . London: TUC.

'Webb, S. and B. (1920) History of Trade Unionism .

London:Longmans.

Interviews

Bunning, Richard; Managing Director, DiverseDevelopments.

Cossey, Chris Head of Press and Publicity, NALGO.

Dedman, Penny; Producer, Triple Vision.

Dovey, John; Freelance Director and Researcher.

Freedman, Des; Producer, Films at Work.

Grassick, Richard; Director, Amber Films.

Hustwit, Jane; National Officer, CPSA.

Kennedy, Susan; Distribution Worker, NFTVA.

Kline, Roger; Research Officer, Birmingham TURC,

Lord, Katherine; Branch Education Officer, CamdenNALGO.

Manasseh, Leslie; Organising Officer, SCPS.

Trade Union Video

31

Page 32: ERIC · DOCUMENT RESUME ED 294 549 IR 013 094 AUTHOR Sparks, Colin TITLE Trade Union Users of Video. PUB DATE Jul 86 NOTE 33p.; Paper presented at the International Television. Studies

Page 30

MacAuslan, James; Education, Training and CampaignsOfficer, IRSF.

McCarthey, Patricia; Distribution _Worker, AmberFilms.

Parker, David; Producer, Forum TV.

Richards, Beryl; Managing Director, Smith BundyVideo.

Rothwell, Gerry; NALGO member, Camden Council.

Rushton, Dave; Producer, TU/TV

Scott, Reagan; TGWU, National Secretary forResearch and Training

Sherman, Barry; Managing Director, Radcomm.

Smith, Michael; Press Officer, TUC.

Spence, Martin; Researcher, Northern Newsreels(Trade Films).

Woolcott, Penny; Director, Northen Newsreels (TradeFilms).

Tapes

A Future for Rail Rail Federation/Diverse

A Question of Democracy TUCC/Radcomm

Advertisement TGWU/Wyvern

Business as Usual? IRSF/Team

Day One TGWU/Forum

It's About Time CPSA/TUIREG

Journalists' Union, NUJ/TURC

Learning on the Line Films at Work

Trade Union Video

32

Page 33: ERIC · DOCUMENT RESUME ED 294 549 IR 013 094 AUTHOR Sparks, Colin TITLE Trade Union Users of Video. PUB DATE Jul 86 NOTE 33p.; Paper presented at the International Television. Studies

Page 31

Membership Matters SCPS/TURC

Miners' Campaign Video Tapes NFTVA (distribution)

No Experience Needed TGWU/Forum

Northern Newsreels 1,2,3 Trade

Presenting the TGWU TGWU/Radcomm

Put People First (three versions) NALGO/TURC

Rights not Hrongs NALGO /TUFC

Rights? Hot Rights? NALGO/TURC

Say Yes to a Voice TUCC/Smith Bundy

'Time for Justice NUPE et.al./Diverse

Mapping Lies CPBF/TU/TV

What's Ply Line CPSA/Wyvern

Ends

Trade Union Video