Journalists: 100 years of the NUJ

Tim Gopsill, and Greg Neale, Profile Books, paperback, 362 pages, £17.99

Numerous fascinating anecdotes pepper this comprehensive account of the first 100 years of the National Union of Journalists (NUJ) written by Tim Gopsill, editor of the NUJ's newspaper, and Greg Neale, who was chief shop steward at The Times newspaper in the 1980s.

Neale's tenure covered the Wapping dispute in 1986, and he also led the Wapping NUJ "refuseniks" who refused to co-operate with Rupert Murdoch's all-out attack on unionisation in the print.

While concentrating in most detail on the last 50 years, the book nevertheless provides an interesting account of how the union came into being and how this shaped the NUJ of today. The self-organising, grass-roots-up model of trade unionism was to set the scene for the union for the next 100 years, as the NUJ organised itself into a hugely democratic organisation.