Journalists win major victory

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journalists on three weekly papers have won a major victory against the most aggressive employer in provincial newspapers.

Journalists on the Acton Gazette, the Hendon Times and the Watford Times struck for five weeks to secure back pay on the national pay agreement and won just as mass pickets worked by the trade union organisations themselves.

It also based itself on the incorrect assumption that higher wages are really in the interests of capitalism.

Of course, although higher wages are in the interests of workers, they are completely against the interests of British capitalism at present.

Nevertheless the victory of this motion would have been a serious defeat for Basnett and vote margin After procedural manoeuvres to suppress it had failed, the were to be reintroduced.

Pickets had shut down King and Hutchings printers in Uxbridge for the best part of a week with NGA members refusing to cross and giving a lead to other printers.

Hundreds of thousands of copies of newspapers and periodicals were lost including the International Herald Tribune, the Jewish Chronicle and Al Arab-a daily paper circulated in Europe.

The NUJ General Secretary, Ken Ashton, called off the mass pickets so that the employers could negotiate without being under any pressure.

No offer Gratefully Westminster Press responded by talking for a week without offering the journalists any guarantee on back pay.

The mass picket was recalled for Tuesday June 6 with every prospect of another shutdown.

Half an hour before it was due to begin Westminster Press called new talks and backed down.

The victory means that just 6½ months after it was due to come into effect, the National Agreement between the NUJ and the provincial employers can be signed.

Can be After three days the NGA deputy general secretary-Dobbins-ordered his members to go into work, which for two days they did.

Then faced with the mass pickets the NGA not only refused to cross but called management outside the building and harangued them.

Presses halted

NATSOPA and SOGAT members took their cue from the NGA and the presses ground to a halt.

The NUJ pickets who had come from all over London and from the Kentish Times and the Oxford Mail,. kept the presses closed.

London based Westminster Press papers were called out in support.

From then on management were faced with a simple choice of settling the dispute at a cost of about £2,000 or seeing many times that amount lost every day.

The victory will strengthen all provincial paper chapels but should not blind members to the disastrous policy adopted by the negotiators of piece meal settlements which allowed chapels to become isolated in the first place.