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A Tale of Wapping Woe from the Outset, the Printworkers Faced Enormous Obstacles

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A Tale of Wapping Woe from the Outset, the Printworkers Faced Enormous Obstacles A Tale Of Wapping Woe From the outset, the printworkers faced enormous obstacles. Mike Power and Helen Hague assess the dispute that lasted a year leet Street history was made Differences between the NGA, Sogat on January 24 1986, when and the NUJ prior to Wapping were Rupert Murdoch's News Inter- widening. Attempts to create one in- national printworkers at The dustrial union by various amalgama- Sun,F News of the World, The Times and tion combinations had broken down and the Sunday Times took strike action instead fratricidal, internecine warfare following overwhelming secret ballot had broken out between them about majorities. The new features were that whose members had the right to 'follow all 5,500 workers were instantly dismis- the job' into new technology. Disputes sed, and uniquely all four papers in the provincial press in Portsmouth, continued to be printed and distributed. Kent and Wolverhampton had witnes- Murdoch had secretly prepared the sed union members crossing each transfer of the papers to his new other's picket lines in order to take Wapping plant where the whole job over their former colleagues' jobs. could be undertaken without tradi- Five months before the dispute began tionally unionised printing and dis- the Sogat executive had sanctioned its Uphill struggle tribution staff. The Wapping plant negotiators to seek the transfer of The contained the most modern direct input Sun and News of the World to the new fered when the NUJ failed to get more typesetting equipment to enable jour- plant even if the other unions were than an initial 30 or so journalists to nalists to bypass NGA printworkers, opposed. However a shotgun marriage join the strike, although a steady and there existed an agreement with between the unions occurred as Mur- despondent trickle did gradually leave TNT road haulage to avoid Sogat doch's intentions became clear and his Wapping in the next few weeks. These distributors. The ground was also laid demands for a legally binding agree- defectors were often replaced by other to act against secondary solidarity ment, no closed shop, unfettered man- union members who had ignored the action by setting up a network of agerial authority and a no-strike deal appeals of their leadership to back the subsidiary companies through which were revealed. The unions responded strike and gladly accepted the in- injunctions could be issued and dam- with an unprecedented eleventh hour creased wages offered by Murdoch. ages claimed against union funds. offer to Murdoch which gave practical- Also the NUJ's sporadic picketing The unions centrally involved had ly all he wanted, but it was too late. efforts were generally limited to a few acted too late, even Murdoch admitted1 dedicated strikers and their suppor- that the strike would have been effec- Common cause in the face of Murdoch's ters. At the same time the TGWU was tive had it happened before Christmas, deunionising and deskilling did not unable to get its members not to cross as preparations then were less adv- extend to the EETPU. The militant Fleet the picket in their TNT lorries. anced at Wapping and pre-Christmas Street EETPU press branch members xtending solidarity by the two advertising in his papers had been were ignored by their leadership and key unions involved also heavy. However it was not Murdoch's were replaced by provincial members proved to be difficult. NGA preparedness or the initially slow union who were also trained to take over members who typeset and reaction that ultimately lost the year- printers' jobs. The collusion between printed Murdoch's supplements could long struggle for jobs and union the EETPU and Murdoch and the not be convinced to stop: both the recognition in the new plant. The defeat subsequent failure by the TUC general supplements were typeset a mile from was undoubtedly due to the failure to council to act against the electricians in Wapping. Only in Merseyside and deliver inter and intra union solidarity February 1986 was an early and major Clydeside did Sogat distribution mem- in a hostile legal, political and economic setback in the dispute. The later bers refuse to handle News Interna- environment. Equally the campaign for condemnation of the general council at tional's papers and then only for a short a reader boycott of the four papers had congress in September was not fol- time. The failure to win action in little effect and the police were able lowed up in time to impose any editorial, production and distribution confidently and brutally to break any discipline on the EETPU. or spread the dispute to the supple- effective picketing. Meanwhile another setback was suf- ments was crucial. As a result other 40 MARXISM TODAY MARCH 1987 Murdoch's increasing redundancy pay offers. When the dispute ended after a full year, 3,000 had stood by their unions and had not applied individually for their payment as News Internation- al had invited them to. This doggedness was responsible for the length of the dispute as it was clear that a large majority of the officials of all unions involved would have wrapped it up months earlier before the final injunc- 'The unions tions and sequestrations were responded threatened. with an un- rom the beginning the reader precedented boycott campaign gave pur- pose to local support groups eleventh and a means whereby sym- hour offer to pathetiFc individuals and organisations Murdoch could give help. However the theme of which gave the campaign remained narrow, asking for a boycott because Murdoch was a practically all bad employer who had sacked his he wanted, workforce after they had made him but it was millions. The content of his newspapers went unmentioned and their monopoly too late' and editorially unfree nature was largely ignored. This was in contrast to the outstanding efforts to gain rights of reply by the local chapels before the dispute when production workers chal- lenged editorial distortions. During the year The Sun and News of the World lost 150,000 and 300,000 copies per issue respectively, which is a small proportion of four and five million in each case. Many expressions of support gave genuine encourage- ment; this included the local authorities that banned Murdoch's papers from their libraries, the Scottish dockers who boycotted newsprint supplies and postal workers who would not deliver bingo cards. These small but heroic efforts could not, in themselves, have had a great effect, but all were subject to legal restraint, damage costs and areas of the struggle became more prevent effective mass picketing. union sequestration. The trade union prominent. Appeals which came from some movement must campaign widely to The striking unions' officials were leftist rank and file elements to extend expose the growing authoritarianism initially reluctant to seek wide support the strike by closing the rest of Fleet represented by the current union laws. for the picketing and demonstrations. Street found no echo. The consequence The dispute was called off finally not But a fear of isolation and the desire for would have been that Murdoch would because those involved were not pre- a successful reader boycott of the have had a free hand with only his pared to continue - they were not papers helped to relax that attitude. papers coming out, while the enormous actually asked - but because, with Extensive picketing and effective de- sums of money being raised weekly to threats of injunctions and sequestra- monstrations to stop the movement of sustain those on strike would have tions, both the NGA and Sogat consi- the papers clearly needed more people come to an end. In any event morale in dered that their organisation would be than the striking unions could mobilise. national newspapers was and remains destroyed. This is a chilling conclusion, Three-stage pickets were organised low as proprietors step up their de- the consequences of which would repay firstly at Wapping and its satellite mands for more redundancies (10,000 study by those who argue that unions Glasgow plant at Kinning Park, second- in the past 18 months), extended are too powerful. ly at the TNT depots and finally at the working days and weeks, less holidays Finally those who have claimed that wholesalers. This gave a national char- and wage cuts as new technology is new printing technology would herald a acter to the effort and allowed many introduced. breakthrough for political plurality in more people to be involved. During the Organisation and discipline among the media have had their answer. early weeks of the dispute it was the strikers remained at a high level, Murdoch now boasts that his vastly optimistically believed that a mass and in spite of the inability to sustain an increased profitability will underwrite picket which blocked the Wapping effective mass picket, a constant day his growing world media ambitions. A Highway could stop the papers. On May and night presence was kept up small, effectively organised, largely 3, after an enormous build up, tens of throughout. When Murdoch applied last unskilled staff can produce four nation- thousands of supporters joined the summer for injunctions to restrain the al newspapers, but the technology is strikers in Wapping but the destruction pickets his affidavits revealed that not cheap which means that old tech- and violent breaking up of the demon- additional security and distribution nology monopolies simply become new stration by the police marked a turning costs were amounting to over £400,000 technology monopolies. • point in the dispute. It was graphically monthly. The deep sense of grievance Mike Power demonstrated, and reconfirmed on the felt by the strikers was shown by the anniversary, that the police could ever-growing ballot majorities to reject 1 Interviewed by the New York Times March 2,1986.
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