Nuu chapels win one battle
Socialist Press1978 1978-04-12Read it in the scan (PDF), scan page 10 →
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The long fought struggle by NUJ members in nine Westminster Press newspaper offices against victimisation showed its first signs of paying off last week.
Journalists on the Barrow' Evening Mail were offered a deal giving them full backdating on the national pay settlement-two days after a similar offer was brusquely withdrawn.
It is the first time for several weeks that there has been any mov = in the dispute force Westmi aster Press to backdate the £7.09p agreement.
Although every other employer in the provincial paper field has paid the increase Westminster Press has held out, partly in retribution against chapels which showed willingness to support Darlington in a six month strike for a closed shop.
Now the eight chapels left have taken fresh heart from the Barrow settl ment. The deal does not o fer all the ment over backdating.
Similar claims are being prepared by the other eight chapels left in dispute.
Moves are also afoot to call for major industrial action throughout the Newspaper Society membership at the annual conference which starts on Tuesday.
The Barrow settlement is a blow against the campaign by Westminster Press to destroy the NUJ. The remaining eight chapels should take heart from this partial victory, dig firm without reducing jobs massively.
The second initiative has been to form an alliance with middle management to make the company 'more efficient' and therefore more profitable.
This will inevitably lead to a worsening of the working conditions at the factories and again accepts that redundancies are inevitable.
In the Yorkshire Erening Post of Friday April 7, the Secretary of the Shop Stewards Committee, Matthew Teale, said:
"It is in no sense an occupation or take over"
The leadership of this factory should be warned against attempting to solve 11. 11SOCIALIST PRESS, H'ednesdal 12 Aprii, 1978
Scan page 11
Pete Barnes, a leading TGWU militant in the Export Packing Services factory in Banbury, Oxfordshire, was sacked last Friday following complaints made to management by Bill Morris, District Official of the TGWU.