Jobs Crunch in Book Publishing
Socialist Press1980 1980-10-29Read it in the scan (PDF), scan page 10 →
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The full effect of the present economic crisis on the book publishing industry has yet to be felt.
Employers and unions alike are agreed that if and when the industry comes out of the recession it is going to be considerably slimmer than what it is now.
The response from rank and file union members has been sporadic. A few weeks back Hamlyn's NUJ chapel accepted four redundancies, from a chapel of more than sixty, without a fight. This was against a background of 30% natural wastage in the first six months of the year. These redundancies must have saved the company absolutely nothing.
The Macmillans and British DON'T GO-WRO leai Printing Corporation NUJ chapels on the other hand have been putting up a determined fight against redundancies in their respective companies.
Macmillans' Basingstoke chapel has stood out for two months now against redundancies and this after SOGAT and ASMTS had accepted redundancies in their areas without a fight.
The depressing aspect of the MacMillans situation is the lack of support from other unions on the premises.
At a national level the NGA have been in to meet the Book Section of the British Printing Industries Federation to discuss how the book publishing industry is to be saved.
The talks have focussed on T CATAL 'productivity, 'manning levels' and 'cooperation' as well as the destructive effects of the government's policies.
If jobs in the industry are to be saved firm action is needed from chapels affected and mutual support amongst the print unions must be fought for as a priority.
Press statements such as the recent NGA/BPIF communication which speaks of the need for "competitiveness' offer no way out for those whose jobs have yet to come under the axe.
With workers by the thousand taking to the streets to oppose Tory policies there is plainly no lack of militancy in the organised working class.
Yet the existing trade union bureaucrats and Labour leaders -whether right or "left'--have no perspective to offer those workers prepared to fight in defence of jobs, living standards, social services and democratic rights.
These can only be defended through policies which start from the independent interests of the working class, which, as an international class, has nothing to gain and everything to lose from attempts to restore the profitability of their "own" employing class.
In a period where the contradictions of the anarchic capitalist system force the wholesale closure and destruction of the productive forces of society, only socialist planned