Employment Lobbying

The Employment Affairs Team represents members’ interests to the UK Government and Europe through its lobbying activities.  

The NS lobbies to represent members’ views on proposed employment legislation.   It aims to maintain the high profile of the NS and lobbies directly to government or through its membership of the specialist employment committee at the CBI.

The NS has promoted members’ interests on a whole range of issues from the national minimum wage, to regulatory burden, trade union recognition, removal of the UK opt-out and pensions. 

Through its extensive lobbying activities on behalf of members, the NS seeks to ensure that proposed employment legislation does not have an adverse impact on the regional newspaper industry.  It assesses whether the proposals work in practice and defends the interests of the newspaper industry, including small businesses. 

Members have direct access to employment law specialists who provide employment law advice tailored to members’ specific employment problems.  The NS advisors are ready to provide the regional press, from editors to HR personnel and managers, with advice on employment matters including the statutory procedures, redundancies, discipline, managing absence, the Working Time Regulations, as well as providing guidance on current and future legislation.

Members are regularly updated on all the most recent case law and legislative proposals through a range of sources including the NS website, the quarterly Employment Law Update letter, legal briefings and emails.  (These can be found in the members' area of the website)

All members have access to the Employment Panel meetings, which is made up of HR directors and senior managers from member companies to discuss employment issues and takes place during the year and have access to the quarterly employment law update newsletter on the NS website containing legislative and case law updates.