The National Union of Journalists (NUJ) was founded on August 30, 1962. Nearly 40 years later, the NUJ has grown into a formidable body of more than 1,400 members.
Initially, the union was made up of direct members but in 1978, because of its ever-increasing size, the NUJ began to draw its members from branches which were formed at the different presses.
Representing more than 260 members today, the NUJ-Star Publications is among the largest branches of the NUJ. Other NUJ branches include Utusan Melayu (M) Berhad, New Straits Times Press, The Sun Media Corporation, Nanyang Siang Pau, Sin Chew Jit Poh and Kwong Wah Yit Poh.
As a branch of the NUJ, the NUJ-Star is committed to promoting the industrial, social, material, educational and intellectual interests of its members. It is the duty of the NUJ-Star to obtain and mantain just and proper rates of remuneration, security of employment and reasonable hours and conditions of work for its members. This the committee does through the Collective Agreement (CA) negotiating process with the company once every three years.
The union is also required to regulate relations between employer and employee, between members and other workers, and among members themselves, and to endeavour, whenever possible, to resolve any differences between them by amicable and conciliatory means.
The NUJ-Star is also expected to organise its members and provide them with advice and assistance on issues which affect them. For example, the branch committee has to date, conducted two anti-sexual harassment workshops for members following complaints of harassment at the workplace.
The NUJ-Star is also fully supportive of the NUJ’s commitment to defend press freedom, to deal with the professional conduct of its members, to maintain high ethical standards in journalism, to further the work of any lawful body that promotes the interests of labour, trade unions and trade unionists and to promote legislation affecting the interests of members.
Since its formation in the late 1970s, the NUJ-Star has strived to uphold its guiding principles. It has negotiated seven Collective Agreements with Star Publications and seen its members through the seven-month “shut-down” of The Star newspaper in 1988 during the Government’s crackdown codenamed Operasi Lalang.
In the mid-1980s, the NUJ-Star established a reputation for bold action. Then NUJ-Star branch chairman Peter Kandiah chaired the NUJ’s Anti-Official Secrets Act campaign. The NUJ-Star also picketed (along with colleagues from the NUNW-Star and other NUJ branches) in protest against amendments that were made to Labour Laws.
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