Burnt Oak - Dumped Mattress Central (an humorous blogpost for Friday)

Bloggers occasionally like to share with their readers the search terms that people use to hit on their blog.

This evening's haul is fairly typical for my blog. I can imagine which of my previous blogposts the search terms have landed searchers on - most of them quite appropriate, luckily.

museum london Aeronauts Interactive Centre - That's easy: a blogpost I wrote about Grahame Park and the RAF Museum.

Andrew Travers Barnet - Innumerable posts about Barnet council and town hall tax dodgers.

relaxing at work - Ha, ha, ha! That picture of Brian Coleman asleep at his desk.

slogan on circulatory system - Bit obscure that one, but I did once try my hand at cartooning, none too successfully.

misandry - ah, yes...

famous children campaigners - I confess I have never written on this subject.

oak hill park barnet funfair - Fun fairs everywhere you turn in Barnet. Makes money for the council, y'see.

jonathan lovett pcs union - Yes, the former Father of the NUJ Chapel at the Barnet Press has gone to work for the PCS union.

valley logos - Dollis Valley Green Walk? I'm sure there are more famous valleys!

library cum cafe - I think - I hope - they are thinking of the tendency of councils such as Barnet to shove every public service they can into the one building, in order to save on the electricity bill. This drive has already ruined Burnt Oak library, and more are sure to follow.

boris johnson birthday card - Aaaah!

small funfairs - You've come to the right place, coming to Barnet!

boris johnson ugly - Oh... well, never mind.

Burnt Oak is a Shithole - At last! Some of the most popular search terms drawing people to my blog.

A little more on that last one. To be fair, I always say that while Burnt Oak is not much to look at, it is not a demoralised place. "Alright, as shitholes go," I think, is what I wrote. I have seen this said of Burnt Oak by other people.

Now someone has started a blog, "Fly Tipping in Burnt Oak", with pictures of the flytipping that takes place in this area.

I think this probably has fairly limited appeal, even to people who live in Burnt Oak and want to complain about fly tipping.

But let's see whether, in time, this blogger branches out to treat of other topics.

If the author of this blog wants to get in touch with me, please email publicity@barnettuc.org.uk, which is my Barnet trades council email. Perhaps we can think of some way to tackle the problem of flytipping in Barnet together...

Strikes are good #1: Tindle Newspapers

Tindle Newspapers journalists working on the company's North London titles, including the Barnet Press, recently took six days' strike action. They were protesting against their workload, the result of the owner of the company not replacing staff as they leave.

Times are hard for the local newspapers business, but Tindle Newspapers, owned by Sir Ray Tindle, is still making a profit. Sir Ray boasts that he has never made people redundant - but that boast was not worth much to our local reporters, sub editors and photographers who were being asked to churn out - that is what it was starting to feel like - title after title with fewer and fewer resources.

The journalists, through their union the National Union of Journalists (NUJ), negotiated for a year with the company, simply asking for one more member of staff, but the negotiations came to nothing. The chapel (that's what the NUJ calls its union branches) took the step of voting to strike. They simply wanted to show that they had had enough; they chose to demonstrate that it is their labour that produces the titles that Tindle is proud to put out in his name.

They struck for six days in April - though they were docked 10 days' pay. Vastly inferior issues of the papers were produced by management in south London. The Tindle strikers' strike was imaginative and won support from the communities they serve, including local politicians. But Tindle Newspapers went quiet. The journalists thought long and hard; the editor came on board in a second ballot for strike action, a vote which again was unanimous in favour.

Tindle Newspapers agreed to talk again, and met the group of NUJ sponsored MPs in Parliament. And, happily, the two sides have now agreed a settlement which ends this dispute - see the journalists' blog for the news:

Following a successful day of negotiations Tindle has agreed to reverse its policy of non-replacement agreeing to a six month moratorium on present staffing levels – guaranteeing that if anyone in editorial leaves over this period they will be replaced. They have also agreed an extra reporter to work for half the week to help out with the current workload. The situation after six months will then be reviewed.

It has also withdrawn redundancy consultation notices issued to staff on the eve of their first walk out.

Jonathan Lovett FOC at North London & Herts Newspapers said: “It has been a long, hard struggle but we are satisfied with the result and now look forward to working together with Tindle to ensure our papers are returned to the quality publications which our readers deserve. We have many ideas for the future of our papers and we look forward to sharing them with the Tindle management across the table.”

This result was achieved through trade union members 'withdrawing their labour', to use the jargon, and showing their employers just how valuable they are to the company. You see, strikes are good.

Save local newspapers - public meeting, 4th July

Enfield hosts the launch of a national, National Union of Journalists campaign on Monday, July 4 to save local newspapers. It starts at 6.30pm at The Dugdale Centre in Thomas Hardy House, 39 London Road, Enfield, EN2 6DS. There will be a range of speakers followed by a Q&A session with The Enfield Nine. All are welcome.

Barnet Press strike is about the quality of local journalism

It was a great day for a trip to Enfield Town to join the demonstration of the NUJ members at Tindle newspapers, Barnet Press and the rest of the North London and Herts stable.

I wouldn't have missed it for the world, particularly the experience of turning the tables and questioning the reporters, such as Kim Inam, who are usually phoning me for a quotation, and asking the photographers to pose for a picture for a change.

I spoke to the Father of the Chapel, Jonathan Lovett, the papers' arts correspondent, before the demonstration.

This dispute is not about pay. There are only three reporters now churning out nine papers, it's not enough to do a good job. When I joined, these were good papers.

The veiled redundancy threat made on the eve of the strike galvanised us. It threw petrol on the fire, when we had hoped there was a chance of conciliation, an 11th hour deal.

We are not sure where the paper is being produced now. There were rumours of the South London Press. But the NUJ chapel is strong there and they have seen no sign of it. Perhaps it is being produced at "Tindle Towers", the Farnham HQ of Tindle Newspapers.

The local titles have been losing money, but the company as a whole made £3 million profit: we argue they can support us. Why have newspapers if you are just going to abandon them when they are in difficulty? The readers still need a paper. That's why we are having this protest. These newspapers are suffering death from a thousand cuts.

But we want to raise them from the dead. During today's demonstration I'll be dressed as a priest; my message is one of hope.

We are striking for three days this week and next; we wouldn't have been working on the bank holidays anyway. We've heard, though, that we are going to be docked pay for the bank holidays as well, so for six days on strike we will lose 10 days' pay. We are getting money from the NUJ hardship fund; and we have received donations.

Last night we visited Birmingham and Coventry NUJ who made a generous donation.

Our ballot was for indefinite strike so after these six days we might announce further days.

There are signs that what has been happening to us, posts going unfilled, is happening elsewhere in Tindle Newspapers. The business model Tindle is trying to impose includes relying on readers to send in the stories.

We have been in negotiations for 12 months over pay and over unfilled posts. We wanted at least a guarantee that any more journalist posts coming vacant would be filled, and we were calling for another journalist to be appointed. We thought we had agreement on that, but at the last minute that demand was rejected.

We got nowhere. We understand that everyone is under pressure, and so pay is not the issue in this dispute. This strike is about the quality of local journalism.

Visit the strike blog here. Set of pictures here.