Journalists Charter: a healthy development

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As unemployment hit its highest figure for 45 years, British employers made it clear that there is much worse still to come.

2.42 million people are officially registered as unemployed. This figure excludes tens of thousands of married women who are ineligible for unemployment benefit and do not sign on the register; and it excludes some 828,000 people artificially kept in work by government "training" schemes and short-time working compensation schemes.

Underestimate

The overall figure of 9.3% of the workforce unemployed and the regional percentages are therefore a deceptive underestimate.

At the same time these overall figures conceal the much higher levels of unemployment faced by youth-in particular black youth and young women.

The Organisation of Economic Cooperation and Development has predicted that youth unemployment in Britain will reach 20% by mid 1982.

But there are more sackings on the way. In manufacturing the CBI is predicting that no less than 500,000 jobs will have been lost. in the six months October 1980-May 1981.

James Cleminson, chairman of Reckitt and Coleman and head of the CBI's "economic situation committee" told the Financial Times last week that:

"Business prospects remain very bleak ... Business is still declining and there is still no indication of a bottom to the trough."

The CBl's ex-Ford whizzkid Sir Terence Beckett went even further, articipating a rise in unemployment lasting until at least mid-1982. only in manufacturing industrv but also in service industriesand increasinglv also in the public sector. • But the fall in the number employed is far greater than the rise in the number of umemployed. 770,000 disappeared in the 15 months to September 1980: but only 566,000 more workers signed on as unemployed.

Yet in that same period further 250,000 workers should have been added to the labour force as the population expands. In other words some 404,000 workers have "vanished" from statistics in only 15 months.

Some of these will be older workers made redundant and taking early retirement. But most seem likely to be married women driven out of the workforce by the slump-and consigned to the menial and claustrophobie confines of domestic labour in the home.

As the 198Us depression deepens, and trade union and Labour leaders wring their hands while lifting not a finger to fight mass redundancies, the economic crisis continues to take its toll on the whole working class and in particular its most oppressed' and downtrodden sections.

Wage

About 50 people attended a conference of Journalist Charter, the NUJ left caucus, on Saturday 31 January. The conference was called under the title was to vote on proposals set out by the steering committee on jobs, the closed shop, press freedom, print unity, Ireland and the This was Journalist Charter's first conference since the relaunch conference last autumn. Charter had been in some dișarray for several years following the break up of the Socialist Workers Party within the NUJ who had formerly dominated Charter and whose politics had alienated many on the left from Charter's ranks. The question in some delegates' minds was just how different would Charter turn out to be this time round.

The morning kicked off with reports on the occupation at the British Printing Corporation from Jenny Vaughan, a'member of the Chapel committee.

The Chapel continues its solid stand against redundancies and is stepping up its fight for supporting print blacking.

Much tougher

At the Times the situation is rather grimmer with Jake Ecclestone, former FoC of the Times Chapel, stressing that with the General Secretaries of the print unions ready to sell out on jobs and technology the possibilities for a fight back are that much tougher. If Murdoch does take over Times Newspapers and gets what he wants (which includes amongst other things over 50% de-staffing in the comp room for a start) job loss is going to sweep through Fleet Street and may involve as many as 14,000 jobs.

The conference resolved to call a meeting for printworkers in Times Newspapers from which to try to initiate action against job loss. • The conference then moved to the discussion on programme for fighting job loss. The debate was surprisingly low key, probably because the arguments had already been fought out over several months on the organising committee.

Work-sharing

There were some amendments from the floor all of which were accepted. The programme agreed upon includes:

1) Total opposition to all forms of job loss.

2) Strikes, occupations or sit-ins to prevent closure or job loss as appropriate.

3) Work-sharing on full pay as an answer to redundancy.

4) The books of employers to be permanently open to elected committees of union members.

The programme ends with the declaration "ultimately we believe the only way to save jobs is through the extension of public ownership under workers' control."

The morning ended with a brief discussion of the closed shop with the conference committing itself to campaigning to extend the closed shop by traditional means and where necessary defying the Employment Act 1980.g Press freedom After lunch the conference reconvened for a report on the strike to stop the closure of the Camden Journal.

This was followed by a brief report on press freedom from Geoff Sheridan which was referred to the organising committee for action. The most important issue raised in these proposals was that of press ownership and alternatives to the capitalist press.

The conference then heard a report on the forthcoming NUJ/ ACTT conference as media censorship of the war in Ireland with various proposals also being referred to the organising committee for action. .. The final section proved to be the most contentious In introducing it, Simon Collings, a National Executive member and Socialist Press supporter, said that he would be surprised if the conference voted for his proposal that Charter support a campaign for NUJ affiliation to the Lahour Party but that nevertheless he saw his contribution as hopefully initiating a serious debate on the issues.

Affiliated

He said that Journalist Charter could not avold the question as it was being raised in the union anyway.

He also stressed that if Charter was serious about print unity it would sooner or later have to confront the fact that the other print unions are all Labour Party affiliated.

Over and above this Collings stressed the sound political reasons for Labour Party affiliation, arguing that the record of Labour in power would not be challenged by ignoring it but by being part of the historically unprecedented: period in Labour's history which has been unfolding over the last 18 months.

Owing to lack of time the discussion was brief and along predictable lines. Aidan White was the main opposition speaker.

At this point several SWP members clearly realised that this was not the Journalist

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"Charter '81': A Programme for Action' and its purpose