Nuj Doves Fail to Bridge the Gap
Socialist Press1977 1977-10-12Read it in the scan (PDF), scan page 11 →
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(see article, page 5)
Wherever struggles develop around such claims in local areas, the fight must be to bring other sections of workers out in support, particularly in the public sector.
Such campaigns should, where possible, be developed further, to build Councils of Action to offer leadership independent of the This conference pledges itself to fight inside the working class on the following points of policy:
1. To bring workers into action to break the 12-month rule and 10% norm.
2. Reject productivity deals.
3. For catching up wage claims with cost of living clauses whereby wages would rise point by point with the cost of living as decided by elected committees of trade unionists.
4. For a campaign inside the labour and trade union movement for the breaking of the Lib-Lab coalition and for the removal of the Callaghan-Healey leadership of the 5. Abolition of cash limits and to fight for a sliding scale of public expenditure.
6. Equal pay.
£60 minimum wage.
This conference pledges fight all union conferen in branches and in sher stewa The ACAS mediator's report on the Darlington NUJ strike is expected this week with the two sides further apart than ever.
Talks held to find common ground between the NUJ and Westminster Press over the closed shop dispute which has led to a five month strike revealed an amazing approach from the employers.
They offered to cut jobs at Darlington and redistribute the victims' pay in the form of a wage rise to other journalists!
This offer confounded even the NUJ leadership who have been hoping for some solution to emerge over the table which will allow print unions and the NUJ to send their members back to work.
When the management was asked to think again they proposed as 'proportionate' closed shop by which new staff would be recruited according to the present ratio of NUJ members and IOJ or non-members.
LOGIC This offer revealed a curious lack of logic on the part of the employers. One of their stated 'principles' throughout the dispute has been that they will not vet the political views of job applicants.
Their new proposal would mean that detailed opinions of every single new recruit would have to be known. One too many NUJ members applying for a job and they would doubtless find themselves turned down with regret ar the grounds that i mas a stabs:m too stupid to see it, the talks had provided them with the best opportunity so far to get an agreement favourable to their long term aims.
The union team-despite previous assurances to the contrary agreed that an interim closed shop would be acceptable. As pointed out in Socialist Press 70, this was the same solution which settled a six month strike at Kettering earlier this year.
FREE TO LEAVE
Since .that strike ended, members who had been kept in the unon have been told by Bill Keys, general secretary of SUGAl and chairman of the Printing Industries Committee of the TUC, that they are free to leave.
Such an interim agreement at Darlington therefore would probably lead to a breach of the closed shop in six months or a year's time, with the choice facing the chapel of starting their strike all over again or caving in.
The union leadership had also promised that the London dispute.Please send Socialist League.
Name. .
Address.. where members were locked out for refusing to strike break at Darlington-would be a condition of settlement.
The mediator informed them that as far as he was concerned it was not even on the agenda. Incredibly the union team accepted this.
The anger of journalists and printers alike has been mounting over the later stages of this dispute ster Press empire to be called out on unlimited strike if the mediation does not bring an acceptable solution.
With the annual pay review talks due to start soon and the sharp in crease in Westminster Press profits announced last week, more members than ever are determined to take action in support of London and Darlington journalists and printers.
The task will be to get the new General Secretary of the NUJ. Kea Ashton, to show any more willingness to spread the dispute than he unlamented predecessor, Ner Morgan. me more information about the 4
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age BACK RESS, Wednesday
----- pull-quotes -----
-with votes coming from papers all round the country in the Westmin-