Workers Socialist League

Socialist Press, Trotskyism Today and the Trotskyist International Liaison Committee, 1975–1984

[with the print union (correctly) and that it…]

Socialist Press no. 81, 4 January 1978 · scan pp. 8–9 · about 441 words

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with the print union (correctly) and that it should only enter into negotiations to work direct entry machines when other unions (basically the NGA) have already agreed to give up that area of work.

That means that in two important cases the NUJ will be forced to accept job cuts Where they take place with the connivance of the print union bureaucracies, and where an NGA chapel has been defeated AS A BIAL IS ALLANE AS CAP SAKERS 3:55g HOPEST SUPPORTE Striker at US Washington Post The only policy that can resist this attack on jobs is one that draws the unions together.

NUJ members will have to reject motions of waiting to see if the NGA agrees to the new arrangements and instead make it clear that it wil not accent direct entrv as nart of its work-whether the printers accept it or not.

This first line of defence must then be used to strengthen the resolve of demoralised print chapels to a stage where they believe that a successful united fight can be put up.

As a second line of defence printers and journalists alike must fight jointly at a local level for work sharing on full pay.

All the work available must be shared out among the workforce with no loss of pay.

To do this it is essential to win manning agreements which fix the levels of jobs.

The policy of no loss of jobs, coupled with no acceptance of job cutting technology goes beyond a static trade union defence.

It must lead to the workers under threat going on the attack.

Managements which claim they must have the new technology to survive must be made to throw open their books, plans and all secret workings, to elected committees of the workforce.

If their claims of insolvency turn out to be true (as is likely in Fleet Street) then workers must demand that the papers are nationalised without compensation under workers' control.

They must demand that the complete control of all editorial matters passes into the hands of the workers and that the private businessmen who manipulate and control the press at vast profit in the provinces and at some risk to their fortunes in Fleet Street are stripped of their instruments of propaganda.

For print union members much is at stake. Side by side a fight to provide closed shops for the NUJ throughout the newspaper industry must go hand in hand with a united and determined fight to resist job cuts-based not on the limits of trade unionism but on scientific understanding of the forces involved.

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SOCIALIST PRESS: Wednesday 4 January 1978 OUR

← Contents of Socialist Press no. 81, 4 January 1978