The National Union of Journalists chapel at the Telegraph Media Group has voted to hold a ballot on industrial action. They’re angry about the company terminating the nine-day fortnight for subs and the ending of the use of casuals.

The senior officers of the chapel appear to have persuaded the few who bothered to turn up for the meeting that the Telegraph has form when it comes to caving in to its blustering. Many people within the chapel apparently feel it would have been better for their colleagues to have been made redundant than for them to lose their current working arrangements… unbelievable, but true.

Here’s some advice for any NUJ members wondering whether they should vote for industrial action:

• Don’t be a fucking idiot. You’re probably already working a 10-day fortnight and you’d be a fool to pick a fight over something that will effect less than a quarter of your colleagues. The NUJ wants you to make a stand because it sees this as part of a wider fight with newspapers across Fleet Street. If you’re faced with a 10-day fortnight then what happens after you’ve made your point? You lose a few quid and you still have to work five days a week. Is it really worth it?
• These are the death throes of an irrelevant organisation. It has no money (so where will it get the cash to support you if a strike goes on for more than a few days), it has falling membership and it is doing its absolute worst to stop the new publishing revolution. That revolution will sweep the NUJ away - don’t let it sweep you away with it
• Leave the NUJ now before this turns nasty
• Read the survival guide and go and see your boss to demand a role on the website on Monday morning

The changes at the Telegraph are being driven by two things: rapidly deteriorating economic circumstances and the Web 2.0 revolution. You can’t do anything about the first but you can about the second.

Your career should be in your hands … not the hands of the NUJ .