For more than ten years newsagent associations fought each other, often viciously, over the issue of unity of representation. There was a sigh of relief when unity was announced by the various associations.
It appears to me that the announced unity is not the unity newsagents wanted.
Today, newsagents face the most significant national issue on which retail newsagents and distribution newsagents should be represented by a single national voice. Instead, the major state associations are running the issue with different messages and via different means.
This is a missed opportunity for newsagents.
Whereas in the past newspaper contract matters were state-based, as that is how publishers handled them, today, they are national – the publishers have made them so.
Look at NANA, VANA and the QNF: they are each running T2020 as a state issue. T2020 is national. It should be run nationally for newsagents by the ANF. These state associations ought to have asked the ANF to run it months ago and they ought to have resourced the ANF to run it.
The best association is one that represents its members on issues of policy and direction. Running off at a tangent investing in and setting up businesses and funding legal fights has been shown for many years to be a waste of association resources.
If the fat were cut from the various newsagent associations and a single national body established to be a true association, I am sure more newsagents would engage. The conflicting agendas between the state associations misrepresent the needs of today’s newsagents.
Our channel is over-governed for its size. Unless it establishes more efficient, modern-day and genuinely unified representation, the various voices of the various associations will continue to be ineffective for the newsagents they claim to represent.
The announcements of unity from a year or so ago appear to have been hollow words. When newsagents need consistent national representation, too much time and money is being spent on local approaches.