NUJ chapels divide
Socialist Press1978 1978-02-22Read it in the scan (PDF), scan page 11 →
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wages.
While a go-slow and work to rule is still being waged against the refusal by the Newspaper Society to backdate the ten per cent wage deal to January 1, the real question-the size of the increases at local level, is hardly being posed..
Those chapels which have won backdating are now engaged in negotiating every diversionary method of trying to win wage increases.
Bonus
Paging bonus, concealed overtime and deais which threaten jobs are all _being agreed.
Meanwhile those chapels which applied the work to rule most strictly are being punished by the Newspaper Society by being refused backdating. Every week the amount of money in dispute grows larger.
By settling a chapel at a HELLO, OFISHALL HERE... SHUT DOWN THIS PLANT? WELL, THAT WILL BE EXPENSIVE...
UT DON'T WHINE TO ME YOU CREEP, OR YOULL GET NOTHING AND WELL THROW YOU UNION BUMS OUT MOF THE PARTICIPATION SET-UP!! time the Newspaper Society have achieved their aim of isolating those chapels which are prepared to fight directly and openly against the 10% limit.
No challenge It is the obvious failure of the leadership of the union that this has come about. But more important is the failure of any effective challenge to that leadership.
The SWP-dominated 'Journalists Charter' has had its usual negligible effect. Once the national vote had gone against a strike over the 10% limit the 'militants' of Journalists Charter gave up the fight for wages for another year.
Until a firm revolutionary base is built in the NUJ, the willingness of journalists to end years of low wages will never be harnessed to face the political questions involved.
YOU'LL NEED THESE