Photographers’ met at the first LPB branch meeting earlier this week to begin organising the fightback over rates and the right to take photographs.
The Digital Economy Bill
The meeting opened with a report from NUJ General Secretary Jeremy Dear on the union’s lobbying and representations to the government on the Digital Economy Bill which is currently making it’s way through Parliament. Dear said that the union does support the bill, but not in it’s current form, especially with regard to orphan works. Dear also said he would be meeting with representatives from other trade unions the next day to discuss how it would effect their members.
Discussion was opened to the floor as to what the branch should do collectively to lobby government over the bill, specifically s42 of the bill which allows for orphan works. There were contributions from the floor that the union should be lobbying for the complete removal of s42 from the bill.
It was agreed that members should write to their MPs using the template letter from Copyright Action to keep the pressure on MPs in the final stages of the bills passage through Parliament.
The meeting then moved on to the panel discussion on the Future for Photography, which you can listen to in it’s entirety.
Branch Business
After the discussion the remainder of branch business was dealt with, including reports from the committee, which will be available in full in the minutes (Registration required).
There were some changes to the branch committee with members without portfolio Jason Parkinson and Phillip Wolmuth taking up the Welfare Officer and Learning Representative positions respectively. Additionally the roles of ‘Legal Representative’ and ‘Web Editor’ were created with the positions being taken by Secretary Marc Vallée and Treasurer Jonathan Warren. New student member Franc David said that he would like to join the committee and it was agreed that he would be co-opted onto the committee without position. The branch committee page has been updated with all the new members and their positions.
Jason, Phillip and Marc all indicated that they would like to job share the new positions with others, if you are interested in helping out with the Welfare Officer, Learning rep or Legal rep positions get in touch. The Equality Officer position also remains vacant.
The full minutes from the meeting will be available to branch members online shortly, to view the minutes you must first register and your branch membership be confirmed.