Children’s authors David Almond, Michael Rosen and Meg Rosoff are among more than 140 writers, booksellers and librarians who have signed a letter calling on Penguin Random House to reinstate relations with two trade unions after talks broke down last week.

Redundancy fears as Penguin Random House derecognises staff unions Read more

The move came after the publisher of George Orwell, Jamie Oliver and bestsellers Fifty Shades of Grey and Girl on a Train terminated its formal relationships with Unite and the National Union of Journalists on Friday. The decision affects the publisher’s London-based headquarters and includes editorial, production, sales, marketing and publicity staff.

The letter, seen by the Guardian and published online [PDF], states simply: “We, the undersigned, call on Penguin Random House to reverse its decision to derecognise its trade unions.” Signatories also include Carnegie award winner Melvyn Burgess, Guardian children’s fiction prize winner Alex Wheatle and Queen of Teen winner Cathy Cassidy.

When the news broke on Friday, historian Antony Beevor, whose bestselling book Stalingrad was published by Penguin in 1998, told the Guardian: “If Penguin Random House is really planning to break existing agreements to reduce redundancy payments, especially at a time when the group is far from suffering financially, then this development is deeply disturbing.” Guardian columnist Owen Jones, whose book The Establishment was published by Penguin in 2014, said: “Penguin: please urgently reconsider this decision and give the workers – who make your company the huge success that it is – the rights and protections that they deserve.”

Author Alan Gibbons, who organised the letter, said: “When Sir Allen Lane established Penguin, it was part of a democratic impulse to empower people through access to reasonably priced literature. The trade unions are part of the same democratic impulse, giving working people the right to negotiate on equal terms with their employer. To retreat from the idea of collective bargaining is a backward step.”

Citing the support she has received from Puffin, a Penguin subsidiary, Cassidy said: “I didn’t think twice about signing the protest letter and I urge Penguin Random House to overturn this decision. It’s a development that scares and dismays me, and I can’t help seeing it as the thin end of a very nasty wedge.”

The world’s biggest book publisher acted swiftly to play down the dispute. In an email to staff on Monday morning, Tom Weldon, PRH group chief executive, denied the decision to terminate formal union recognition was over redundancy terms.

“The negotiations with the unions were never about changing anybody’s terms and conditions,” he said. Negotiations, he said, were about the implementation of a single collective bargaining agreement following the £2.4bn mega-merger between Penguin and Random House, owned by German group Bertelsmann, four years ago.

Weldon added: “They were about achieving a new house agreement that reflected the combined Penguin Random House UK business (Penguin, Random House and Transworld) in London. This kind of agreement would have cemented the relationship between the unions and the company for the future.”

In a move to reassure Penguin staff, he described the unions’ claims as misleading. The unions had sought to extend Penguin staff’s enhanced redundancy terms across both sides of the business, Weldon said: “We did not accept this because this would have meant a broader agreement than the ones that previously existed. At no point did we … propose to reduce the terms and conditions of any employee. Our view was that an agreement could be signed without these new terms included.”

The unions responded with an email to staff thanking them for support and rejected Weldon’s comments. In a joint statement, they outlined the reasons why talks had broken down and said: “The union reps could not agree to remove these redundancy payment terms without the consent of our members, and it’s quite clear to us that the majority … did not want these terms to be removed.”

In response to Weldon’s claim that the door had never been closed on discussions, the statement added: “Yes, the door is still open for discussions, but only if our proposal includes the removal of the written terms of payment.”

Authors were unimpressed with PRH’s position. Michael Rosen told the Guardian: “Penguin is a large company concerned with the free circulation of ideas, part of what Émile Zola called the ‘republic of letters’. Free trade unions are part of the world which believes in that. If the Penguin company want to be known as flag-bearers within the republic of letters, they should of course allow all their employees to be members of trade unions and to negotiate with union representatives.”

Signatory Mary Hoffman, citing Robert Tressell’s The Ragged-Trousered Philanthropists and its theme of workers’ rights at the turn of the 20th century, said: “I can’t believe that workers are still having to fight the same battles over a century later. Ironically, the Modern Classics edition of this work is published by Penguin, I hope the bosses will all read it over Christmas.”



Penguin Random House has been contacted for comment.