[Duffy -behind AUEW grovelling to Nissan Journalists from…]

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Duffy -behind AUEW grovelling to Nissan Journalists from the Camden Journal in London are waiting to hear how many of them still have jobs with the group that shut their paper six months agoCourier Press Holdings.

An arbitrator' . has been called in to decide how many of the eleven journalists employed at the Camden Journal should be given jobs elsewhere in the group, which publishes local papers in London, the Midlands and Wales.

Jobless What is certain is that most of the journalists who have been on strike since four days before Christmas, will be left jobless and that the : Camden Journal is defunct.

This end to the long and painful strike which has been waged by the NUJ against Staniey Clarke, the chairman of Courier Press, is being hailed by many of those who fought it as a victory:

Clarke had sworn that plans to axe the paper and all the jobs were nonnegotiable. He had consis: tently turned his face against any means of buying off the strike through token concessions.

His acceptance of arbiiate effect-four days before Christmas.

Victimisation played a large part in his calculations as was evidenced by the red scare propaganda he and some scab journalists distributed freely to journalists in the rest of the group.

The response of the members at Camden was to fight and they were given immediate support by colleagues on other North London Newspapers publications.

Demonstration in great cost:

What was criminal was that while those members struggled to stop the closure, the NGA leadership refused to support the struggle.

NUJ leaders who had backed their own members' action, nevertheless baulked confronting Tony Dubbins, who was acting for the NGA.

A highly successful lobby of the. NGA National Council which helped win limited support, took place against the advice of the NUJ leadership. support of Camden strikers from Clarke, Dubbins gave three. weeks (!) notice of strike action in Nuneaton.

As the time was running out, Clarke called for a meeting and offered arbitration. Dubbins immediately told the NUJ that was enough for him, and threats of strike action were withdrawn.

Faced with no way forward, the NUJ chapel voted to accept arbitration. The last gesture of defiance was for North London journalists to stay out until the arbitrator reported.

Even before the dust Yes-for those who doubted it, the trade union leaders have followed upon the example they set during their series of speeches to the Peoples March for Jobs.

During the March they expressed their moral outrage at unemployment and lined up with local businessmen, Liberals, bishops and rank and file clergymen in a cross-class appeal to the Tories to "change course"

Having reflected long and hard on the next steps, the Northern Region TUC has now come up with the perfect answer to unemployment: if workers would only give up their trade union rights and hard won conditions, perhaps they could persuade the employers to take them on?

Grovelling

This is exactly the offer made by TGWU and AUEW officials in beseeching the giant Nissan car firm to allocate its new Datsun plant to one of three sites in the North East.

They have offered to break down completely the traditional job demarcation established elsewhere in the car industry and engineering.

They have even offered one joint union-or two, if Nissan management prefer it that way.

They offered the "best possible" industrial relations. Their grovelling did not go unnoticed. As one CBi spokesman said afterwards:

"It's clear Datsun could ask for anything, and if they weren't offered the right conditions they would just take their factory somewhere else."

Prostration

These are precisely the kind of conditions the CBI has looked to the Thatcher government to create. The prostration of the Northern TUC leaders stems from the 200,000 unemployed in the region, and the prospect of securing 5,000 extra jobs.

Sooner than defend the jobs of their existing mem822: bers by mounting occupations and strike action against closures and redundancies, union leaders are turning now to negotiating away in advance the conditions of workers in a factory yet to be built!

Are there no lengths to which these spineless bureaucrats will refuse to go in their avoidance of a fight with the employers?

It appears not. The only way workers can hope to defend their interests or mobilise independently against unemployment Is through the building of a new leadership in the labour movement.