Pergamon: strike back at Maxwell
Socialist Press1981 1981-03-11Read it in the scan (PDF), scan page 7 →
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THE NUT leadership has willingly grasped at a miserable 15% pay offer, ducking any tight against the Tories.
They are: reserving their venom and aggression for militants who fight for action against the cuts.
. Last week six NUT members were suspended from the union and barred from office for 18 months for supporting strike action on the Lambeth Day of Action on February 4.
Among them was NEC member Dick North, and Lambeth Trades Council secretary Vanessa Wiseman.
This brazen victimisation must be fought by every NUT association.
On Wednesday 4 March the NUJ Chapel at Robert Maxwell's Pergamon Press (Oxford) were called out on official strike by the NUJ National Executive after a meeting between Maxwell and NUJ negotiators the previous day failed to produçe any real progress on a housé agreement claim, some aspects of which have been outstanding since the Autumn of 1979, as well as the issue of 1981 wages.' Pergamon rates of pay and general conditions of employment are poor compared with other houses the NUJ organises.
Amongst other things the Chapel was seeking agreement from the company to a consultation procedure covering new technology. Maxwell declared emphatically that he was not going to tie his company to any written agreement to consult.
The "company's response to the strike was first to threaten sackings and then, last Friday, to carry the threat out.
This style of conducting disputes is reminiscent of viciously anti-union employers and hardly beçoming in a Labour Party and ASTMS member which Maxwell is.
The Chapel has declared its intention to fight until its members are reinstated. Support from the Irish Graphical Society has already been forthcoming and support from the NGA is also being sought.
Oxford Trades Council has set up a support committee and Ruskin trade union college has been supporting picket lines and has supplied the strikers with a headquarters.
"Messages of support and donations should be sent to: Pergamon Chapel Strike Fund, c/o5 Union Street, Oxford. ted to the chaos.
"1) Occupy the threatened 2) Insist that Lamb, the transport and plant.
Trial sub (UK).
Six insucs.. .82.00
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Teachers banned