Stefan Stern, Director of Strategy at Edelman is joined by Francis Beckett, Author and Journalist, and Lance Price, Author and Political Commentator, to discuss what is at stake when there is a battle of complicated messages being fought over by unions, political parties, journalists and others, during a strike.
Podcast participants:
 |
Chair: Stefan Stern, Director of Strategy, Edelman Stefan has been writing and commenting on business and management for the past two decades. He wrote the Financial Times’s management column for over four years before joining Edelman in August 2010 as its Director of Strategy. He is Visiting Professor in management practice at the Cass business school. |
 |
Francis Beckett, Author and Journalist Francis is an author, journalist, broadcaster, playwright and contemporary historian. He is the author of sixteen books, most recently What Did the Baby Boomers Ever Do For Us – How the Children of the Sixties Lived the Dream and Failed the Future (Bitback, 2010) and Firefighters and the Blitz (Merlin, 2010). He has been president of the National Union of Journalists and worked on two national newspapers; was head of press and publications at the National Union of Students, a trade union head of communications, and a Labour Party press officer and ran his own PR consultancy. His website is francisbeckett.co.uk. |
 |
Lance Price, Author and Political Commentator Lance is an author and political commentator. He is a former BBC correspondent and media adviser in 10 Downing Street. Lance is the author of: The Spin Doctor’s Diary (Hodder and Stoughton, 2005), an account of his time at Downing Street, and Time and Fate, a novel. In 2010, Lance published Where Power Lies. His website is lanceprice.co.uk. |
Very interesting discussion. It is of course a serious probelm for unions that using their ultimate industrial weapon – the right to strike – is very often a PR disaster because of its adverse impact on otherwise uninvolved members of the public. It seems to me that in the interests of their members, unions should only call for strike action as a last resort and that the currently striking unions have played into the Government’s hands. More subtle methods, such as funding and publishing research into productivity gains from improved skills and working conditions and the adverse impact of wide pay gaps, would in my view be more effective in the long run.