Sit-in print firm closes down

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IT'S GETTING VERY EMBARRASSING -HEALEY DEMANDING WAGE CONTROLS AND OWEN BLESSING MUCLEAR HEAPONRY -! MEAN, HOW INDISCRETE!

Journalists on the Runcorn Weekly News arrived for work on Wednesday to find security men with guard dogs occupying their office.

It was a bizarre farewell from proprietor John Swale, signailing the closure of his three Merseyside weekly papers and the loss of over 200 jobs.

For seven weeks union officials had faced confusion and contradiction trying to negotiate with an autocratic management.

And their members had been living in uncertainty as rumour and speculation filled the vacuum left by a lack of proper information.

It all began when Swale sacked eight printers after the NGA refused to call off their work-to-rule and overtime ban, part of a nationwide campaign in support of their pay and hours claim.

All 120 printworkers walked out in protest over the sackings. And in their turn, they too were dismissed.

When the national dispute was settled, part of the agreement between the NGA and the NION DUES management organisation, the Newspaper Society, was that all workers would be reinstated.

Closing down

But Swale, retiring President of the Newspaper Society refused to give his printers their jobs back. And instead he announced the following week that he was closing down the print division altogether.

Twelve NGA jobs could be saved, he said, but 61 would have to go, along with all 40 NATSOPA men.

Journalists and clerical staff employed on the Runcorn, Widnes and Liverpool Weekly News were told that their jobs would also go unless the NGA agreed to the redundancies.

The NGA's response was to occupy the company's Widnes headquarters in a widely-reported "SAS-style raid"

The sit-in ended seven days later when management reinstated all the printers in the belief that a solution had been found.

But when the settlement terms were put to the workers themselves they met with wholehearted rejection.

It would still have meant only 12 jobs out of 120, and redundancy payments were far Getall AT THE from generous and could have been delayed for up to twelve months.

Again Swale threatened to close the three newspapers and said the company was going to go into liquidation.

The NGA met again and confirmed their rejection of Swale's proposals; two management deadlines passed without action and then last week employees were sent photocopied letters telling them the company was closing.

But there was no mention of liquidation and there is now speculation that Swale will wait a few months and then try to open again, with a carefully selected workforce.

LATEST of the union bureaucracies to vote themselves a handsome pay increase are the 1,600 officials of the TGWUwith rises of 20%. Moss Evans of course was •the key man responsible for ending strikes by BL workers demanding more than Edwardes' 5% pay offer.

NO SWEAT... BENN AND HEFFER ARE KEEPING EVERYTHING IN ORDER FOR "PARTY UNITY"

WHILE WE THROW OUR WEIGHT BEHIND JIM the Provisional Sinn Fein's October demonstration in Oxford the real development had been the CP's witch-hunting intervention.

Only a consistent method of work, away from abstract propaganda and into the mass movement, had ensured the defence of the right to speak out on Ireland.

During the discussion, trades counci delegates from Leicester, Tower Hamlets, Oxford, Runcorn and Widnes and Wirrall drew out the essential fight with the TUC, and the importance of local labour movement conferences and bulletins on Ireland.

OPPRESSION MOVEMENTS WCIV 6XX.

THATS NOT THE PROBLEM - LISTEN TO RON TODD...

be pressed to carry out the journalists' union's conference decision to organise a labour movement conference on media censorship on Ireland.

An RCG resolution calling for unconditional support of the IRA and INLA was carried.

But as Socialist Press supporter Chris Erswell pointed out, guerrillaism is acceptable only as a tactic, not as a strategy.

A socialist strategy is based on mobilising the working class in Ireland and Britain.

During the day a threatened National Front team of ex-army• hit-men failed to materialise and July 20-27 1980 BUT I'M NOT HAPPY ABOUT COMMITTING OURSELVES TO "JOBS-PEACE FREEDOM " -IT ALL SOUNDS DANGEROUSLY RADICAL TO ME!

NOT AT ALL! IF IT'S UNITY WITH CALLAGHAN, IT ONLY MEANS..

• HE SAID "LET'S HAVE LESS TALK ABOUT INCOME POLICIES AND MORE TALK ABOUT SOCIALIST POLICIES"- CANT YOU CONTROL HIM, MOSS? DONT WORRY, CLIVE - HE ONLY CALLED FOR TALK ABOUT SOCIALIST POLICIES! PEACE IN JOBS FOR FREEDOM TO IGNORE POLICIES WE DON'T AGREE WITH! - side can unilaterally this week convince the chairman of the Scottish Teachers Salaries Commission, Lord Robertson, that negotiations have irreparably collapsed and that the dispute be put to arbitration, they will in the majority sigh with relief that they have been let off the hook of pursuing further industrial action.

It may be the case that a minority of the Executive are resolved to press on in pursuit of the 18.6% claim but the majority clearly have no heart for the struggle.

The Executive submitted four emergency resolutions on wages on Friday morning of the conference. But none of these committed the union to the figure of 18.6% and the only concrete proposal for the following week was industrial action involving 10% of the membership for one day.

Even the dispirited manner in which this extremely limited action was submitted to the delegates suggests that the leadership will meekly accept whatever pittance is doled out by the arbiters.

Having allowed the militant delegates to let off steam in the salaries debate the Executive then used the right wing dominated conference to rubber stamp its do-nothing position relation to conditions of service ably abetted in this by its glib whizz kid Kier Bloomer-the union's chief negotiator.

One bright spark in the darkness was a conference decision that «a teacher's known homosexuality should not justify dismissal from his/ her post'or lack of promotion"

A more thorough examination of the issues raised at the EIS conference will appear in next week's issue of Socialist Press.

YEAH, BUT ALL THIS TORY BASHING AND TALK ABOUT SOCIALIST POLICIES COULD INCITE ALL KINDS OF ACTION BEYOND THE USUAL GESTURES!

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PEACE• JOBS FREEDOM/ 90 АДАд88дд

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