Foot backing fo Pergamon strikers

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The strike by nine NUJ members at Pergamon Press, Oxford is now five weeks old.

In the last week several things have happened to take the strike nearer to the national prominence which it deserves.

MI Robert Maxwell, a Labour Party and ASTMS member, is now Chief Executive of the largest printing and publishing group in Europe.

Yet while the Tory press reports on the miracles' that Maxwell is working with the bankrupt British Printing Corporation plants he has just taken over, by which is -ee meant the 3,000 or su workers who have been or are due to be put on the dole, nothing of the reality of Maxwell's activities surfaces in print.

For the Pergamon strikers, the 'miracle'-working Maxwell appears in a different light.

Since they went on strike over an agreement covering conditions and wages five weeks ago they have been company is now interviewing theller to fill their jobs.

But in their fight for reinstatement and a serious response to their claim, the Chapel have won a lot of support and some important allies.

The most important of these is none other than Michael Foot. the leader of the Labour Party.

On a visit to Oxford last Saturday to address a regional Labour Party rally, Foot stopped to talk to strikers who were leafleting outside the rally.

This followed an approach by the NUJ General Secretary to which Mr Foot, himself an NUJ member, has responded.

He will now be looking into the dispute and seeing what can be done. As he went into the rally he wished rs the strikers success.

Earlier in the week six of the strikers were present at the NUJ 1981 Annual Conference to witness conference unanimously pass a resolution supporting them and condemning Maxwell for his attitude to the strike.

The Chapel will now be pressing ahead for the national publicity and support which their case cries out for.

Donations to the strike fund and messages of support should be sent to the Pergamon NUJ Chapel, c/o 5, Union Street, Oxford.