[The acute problems facing workers in printing, publishing…]

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The acute problems facing workers in printing, publishing for 17th May at the London College of Printing.

The conference is sponsored by the London Suburban Area Council of the NUJ, together with the Stratford Express Chapel and the Penguin Books London Joint Chapels, and it is supported by various other bodies of the NUJ and ASTMS in the industry.

Its theme is announced as 'the fight against redundancies' . The difficulties these workers face are set out in the advance publicity to the conference. The capitalist crisis is forcing particularly sharp attacks on wages and jobs in an industry where employers rely on heavy borrowing at inflated rates of interest. The strong feeling among workers about the need to fight for every single job is shown by the recent strike at the Time Out magazine which centred around the granting of just one position to somebody who already held another job.

The policies which are being discussed by the conference organising committee already contain many proposals which should be supported. It has been suggested for instance, that all changes in manning arrangements should be subject to veto by the workforce. Furthermore, it has been put forward that all enterprises faced with closure should be compelled to grant work-sharing without loss of pay, while the books of all such firms should be opened to inspection by committees of trade unionists.

These pulicies must all be supported and fought for amongst the workers in the industry. The struggle to carry them out must not be left until the emplovers are able to split and weaken :.:e workforce through partial redundancies. It must be taken up and linked to the demand for the full nationalisation of the communications industry, without compensation to the former owners.

NI A conference of about 50 shop stewards and • trade unionists from NALGO, NUPE NUT, T&GWU and ASTMS, as well as tenants associations was called in E London by NUPE last Saturday to discuss cuts in local health services.

Approximately 10 hospitals in the area have been closed or are threatened with closure. Meanwhile not one single hospital has even been started. The one immediately under the axe at present is Poplar Hospital where there has been a campaign to save it for about 4 years. The campaign has included threatened strike action by dockers worried about loss of nearby accident service facilities.

Speakers referred to the failure of many forms of protest to halt the rundown of Poplar which now has only 20 beds in use.

WSL members at the meeting put forward a policy for defence of the NHS, which drew enthusiastic support. Several NHS shop stewards spoke in favour. A committee of delegated shop stewards from all the unions (including a Ford Dagenham steward) plus tenants representatives, was set up and the following resolution passed

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and broadcasting will be high- lighted at a conference called