NGA defeats press bosses

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Published by Folrose Ltd for the Workers Socialist League, BM Box 5277, London WC1V 6XX. Printed by Anvil Printers, The National Graphical Association chalked up a significant victory against the Tory employers this week with the defeat of the lock-out in provincial papers.

As we went to press, printers in commercial print houses were still locked out but pressure on the British Printing Industries Federation to settle was dramatically increased.

The Newspaper Society had been consistently the more hawkish of the two employers' organisations but crumbled quickly after member companies began moving towards settlements of their own.

The NGA has won its wage demand for a minimum wage of £80 now and reduced hours to 37½ (at a slower rate than it had demanded). But the dispute had by now become not one directly about the wages and hours, but about whether the Newspaper Society could break the union, and in particular break its closed shop.

The most significant that the management was demanding said that where the union had failed to fill jobs from its own list the management would have the right to fill them as they thought fit. This could quickly have led to the collapse of the closed shop in the provincial press.

The clause has now been amended to read that where the union fails to fill the job, discussions will take place between the management and the union as to how it should be filled.

Joe Wade and the NGA leadership had already, before the lockout, given away a massive amount by signing deals which included demands for full flexibility and productivity and which spoke of the importance of new technology being introduced.

All this collaborationist prelude to the selling of jobs still stands. There is little doubt that most NGA members, and those in other unions who were supporting them, had braced themselves for a lockout fasting a couple of months, and that they were prepared to fight against all these clauses.

It is also true that the wage deal does not protect the membership against the effects of intlation, let alone bring a real increase in wages.

The deal therefore once again shows how the union bureaucracy is incapable of defending the interests of its members, despite the readiness of the membership to fight.

But it also shows that the Tory offensive can be resisted and defeated where strong unions stand firm, and receive support from other unions in the workplace.

In terms of the balance of forces there is little doubt that the Newspaper Society, which has 'embraced a policy of confrontation with the unions, has received a bloody nose and that the open division within its ranks will grow.

The NGA membership, shaken out of 20 years of peaceful coexistence, can now be given the confidence it needs to take the offensive and put an end to the continual attacks on jobs posed by new technology.