NUJ radicalised by long

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National Union of Journalists' annual conference in Ayr.

Strong motions condemning Preparations are now under way for a National TGWU Delegate Conference in support of the Garners recognition strike, now entering its sixteenth month.

As picketing of Garners restaurants continues ominous signs exist that the Region 1 TGWU officials are preparing to knife the strike in the period following the General Election.

Only the determination of the remaining strikers to fight on and struggle for the measures-constantly evaded by the union bureaucracy-necessary to win, acts as a barrier.

This week leading strikers continued to campaign for the widest possible support-going to the antiracist rally sponsored by Coventry Trades Council.

Below we reprint the model resolution issued by the Strike Committee and call on all our readers in the TGWU to take it into their branches-as well as attending the Day of Picketing called for May 5.

Model Resolution.

This Branch/Committee supports the call of the Garners Steak Houses Strike Committee for a Day of Picketing on May 5 and a National TGWU Delegate Conference on June 9.

This Branch/Committee resolves to elect and send (....) delegates) to the Conference.

(The Conference will take place at 2.00 p.m. on June 9 in London. Delegates credentials are 50p and further information (venue, agenda, etc) is available on request from the Strike Committee, c/o TGWU Office, 12-13 Henrietta St., London WC2. 01-240 1056). attacks, legal and physical, on picket lines were passed virtually without opposition in an atmosphere heightened by the killing of anti-fascist Blair Peach, and the jailing of Bristol NUJ picket Steve McKenley.

A motion tabled by the National Executive repudiated the Concordat and called for the extension of picketing rights and unequivocal commitment from the TUC towards setting up closed shops throughout the print industry.

A motion from Oxford instructing the executive and industrial councils to accept no legal restrictions on the right to strike, impose blacking and to picket was unanimously endorsed.

But the development in the union has taken place in an uneven way. The results of the national executive elections, conducted by • postal ballot, showed a swing to the right with several leading lefts losing their seats.

Little known

Leading right wingers were also defeated, and several of the successful candidates were little known right wingers whose election addresses had made play for the centre.

A test of the new mood in the union came with the vote on a motion calling for immediate withdrawal from the Press Council-a symbol of class collaboration which seeks to "adjudicate' on press complaints.

The motion tabled by the Magazine branch called for the setting up of an alternative complaints body-without specifying that it should be a labour movement body.

In the event the debate was entirely between those who wanted continued collaboration and those who wanted trade union independence.

The motion was defeated 157-142 in favour of an amendment from the National Newspapers and Agencies Industrial Council, which called for "stronger NUJ representation"

and "restructuring" of the Press A ONE DAY strike of provincial journalists has been called by the union's annual conference in support of NUJ members at Nottingham sacked by the Evening Post for taking Striking journalists has been contradicted by their branches which have thrown out the deal.

The second step must be at the Rules Revision Conference where the full time careerists should be made subject to recall every few years and be deprived of voting rights at any Executive meeting.

In the meantime the question of the 1979 pay claim needs to be settled to the satisfaction of the rank and file.

A special meeting of the National Executive has been called this week to discuss methods of circumnavigating the massive 'no' vote.

No doubt a report will be presented to delegates at conference in a bid to reverse the ballot decision.

Members want the etticiency deal kicked out, they want full consolidation without strings, and they want to know why the other parts of the deal as agreed last December have been dropped.

UPW members everywhere must be prepared to take strike action to defend themselves, their jobs and their living standards from the attacks of both the Post Office and the union OUR OFFER IS 8% - NOT A PENNY MORE, PLUS LOTS OF STRINGS-UNDERSTAND?! CERTAINLY SIR! THANK YOU SIR-PIL SET THE MACHINERY IN MOTION...

BUT TOM'S MACHINERY HAS THE RAILS... ¡ SHOULD HAVE GUESSED IT! WRECKERS AGAIN!.. PASSING ROUND CIRCULARS BEHIND MY BACK! BUT TOM-SOME OF EM ARE EVEN DEMANDING TE YOUR RESIGNATION!

UPW BALLOT COUNT FOR part in the seven week pay strike.

- The conference also backed a call for a national ballot of the entire membership calling for a total one day strike. The NUJ rule book forbids all out strikes involving a majority of the membership unless a : postal ballot shows a two-thirds majority in favour.

The strike call, though limited, is the first break favour of using the strength of the NUJ membership against the management at Nottingham and the Newspape Society employers' federation which is giving tacit support to the sackings.

But a curtailed debate at the conference also showed that the Nottingham chapel is still placing a great deal of misplaced faith in their alternative paperthe Nottingham News.

A clause in the resolution moved at the conference calling for urgent steps to raise enough finance to turn the paper into a commercially viable cooperative was passed without a speaker against.

The strike call is now in the hands of the incoming national executive and there is a danger that they might try to use the ballot to head off the definite strike of provincial journalists called by the conference. No date has yet been set.

One day strikes are themselves insufficient to win reinstatement for the 23 journalists still without a job at Nottingham. But it is now a matter of urgency to reinvolve the provincial membership, sent back to work at the end of the strike without satisfactory assurances over the Nottingham jobs.

A new mass picket has been called for this Saturday, May 5. All NUJ members and others who can get to Nottingham must support this show of solidarity.

JAILED Britstol NUJ picket Steve McKenley was appealing against a sentence of three months in the High Court as we went to press.

Already Steve has served a week of a sentence imposed for a supposed assault on police who attacked the picket line..

On 'legal advice' no demonstration has been called in Bristol and an NUJ vigil at the police station has been abandoned.

The NUJ Conference condemned the sentence as "part of a violent and provocative campaign by the police and the judiciary against trade unionists' traditional right to picket."

It called for a protest campaign and a TUC all-union conference to discuss 'the threat to trade union rights and the political and industrial action which should be taken to resist it.

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STRIKE VOW NOW PHOTO: Laurence Sparham, IFL REMBLEY BREN HAMEC BACK BOLTON