NUJ: isolation danger

Scan page 10

A picket of the trial of the first person prosecuted under the Criminal Trespass Law-the law designed NUJ chapels fighting for backdating of their national agreement to January face an increasing danger of being left isolated.

Many employers have PITAL THE TRESPASS LAWI! to outlaw sit-ins and occupations.

YOUR MAN AT THE TOP'S GHT TO STAY ON YOUR B conceded the demands at local level-including Thomson Newspapers-and only Westminster Press and United Newspapers of the large employers are refusing local deals in a significant number of chapels.

The dispute began over the right to make local claims on top of the 10% national agreement. With a clause now agreed that allows chapels to put in local claims, the fragmentation of the settlements over backdating is making a united fight over wages against key employers less and less likely.

The NUJ tactic of a work to rule rather than all-out strike was the correct one. The union membership-due entirely to a combination of SWP ultimatism and right wing sabotage-voted against strike action on the national wage claim.

Those chapels prepared to fight for wages had to avoid the trap of allowing the employers to dictate an all-out battle over the preliminary issues.

Likewise the tactic of allowing some chapels to reach local agreements was also correct, since this split the unity of the employers and created divisions in the ranks of the Newspaper Society.

But the tactic has now become self defeating. As the number of chapels settling increases so the number of chapels fighting on diminishes, the danger of isolation grows and the confidence of the employers to deal with the remaining chapels,. including some of the toughest in the country, increases. • Chapels must demand that the NUJ negotiators make themselves accountable to the membership still struggling.

Several chapels have DAY 3-PARTICIPATION MORNING MORNING STAR STAR * BISHOP MORNIN FIGHTS STAR CLOSURE already faced lock-outs of short periods and a general wave of lock-outs is now expected against chapels which have increased the severity of their sanctions.

They must demand that no more local settlements are permitted and that national action be called if a wave of lock-outs takes place.

Chapels have won the right to make local claims and must unite to ensure that wage claims are submitted and fought for, not by negotiating phony productivity agreements, but by combating wage controls head on and demanding wage rises to restore and retain living standards.

It is necessary to fight for wage rises to match inflation and for elected committees of workers, and working class unemployed and housewives, to dictate what rises are necessary.

Primary

But the importance of the present struggle must not be underestimated. Although it takes the form of a preliminary struggle having its roóts in a seemingly secondary question of backdating, the employers have chosen to make it an issue of primary importance in the continuing campaign to destroy the NUJ and prop up the weak and ineffectual company union, the Institute of Journalists.

NUJ members must therefore be prepared to fight this battle through as if the rights already won by the union depended on it.

DAY 1-INTRODUCTION RIGHTS OF WORKING PEOPLE! DAY 4 AND IF ALL ELSE FAILS, YOU MAY HAVE TO LISE A ONE-DAY STRIKE... RAY SUMMED IT UP WELL... icin TUC

----- pull-quotes -----

DROP THE CHARGEST STUDENTS

fishalls Diary

SQUATTERS UNITE To FIGHT THE CRIMINAL THE

INDUCTION COURSE 78

WELCOME BROTHERS & SISTERS! INO EMPEROR- OUR TASK IS TO ADVANCE THE