Wapping dispute

Tony Dubbins, General Secretary of the National Graphical Association, on the picket line during the Wapping dispute

The Wapping dispute was a lengthy failed strike by print workers in London in 1986.

Print unions tried to block distribution of The Sunday Times, along with other newspapers in Rupert Murdoch's News International group, after production was shifted to a new plant in Wapping in January 1986.

At the new facility, modern computer facilities allowed journalists to input copy directly, rather than involving print union workers who insisted on using outdated "hot-metal" Linotype printing methods. All of the workers were dismissed. The failure of the strike was devastating for the print union workers, and it led both to a general decline in trade union influence in the UK, and to a widespread adoption of modern newspaper publishing practices.

Political significance

Along with the miners' strike of 1984–85, the Wapping dispute was a significant defeat in the history of the British trade union movement. The 51-week miners' strike of 1984–85 was followed a year later by the 54-week "Wapping dispute" launched by newspaper printers in London.[1] It resulted in a second major defeat for unions and another victory for Mrs Thatcher's union policies, especially her assurance that the police would defend the plants against pickets trying to shut them down.[2]

The target was Britain's largest privately owned newspaper empire, News International (parent of The Times, The Sunday Times, The Sun and others, all owned by Rupert Murdoch). To make his newspapers profitable he needed to introduce technological innovations that would put 90% of the old-fashioned typesetters out of work. The company offered redundancy payments of £2,000 to £30,000 to each printer to quit their old jobs. The print unions rejected the offer and on 24 January 1986 its 6,000 members at Murdoch's newspaper plants went on strike.

Meanwhile News International had built and clandestinely equipped a new printing plant in the London district of Wapping. The principal print unions – the National Graphical Association (NGA), the Society of Graphical and Allied Trades (SOGAT 82) and the Amalgamated Union of Engineering Workers (AUEW) – ran closed shops: only union members could be hired at the old Fleet Street plants; most were sons of members. However, the new plant in Wapping did not have a closed shop contract.

The company activated its new plant with the assistance of another union, the Electrical, Electronic, Telecommunications and Plumbing Union (EETPU) as well as TNT Newsfast a new division of the express delivery and logistics operator TNT UK Limited whose Managing Director Alan Jones employed members of the Transport & General Workers Union (T&GWU) to cross the picket lines at Wapping. Most members of the National Union of Journalists moved to Wapping and NUJ chapels continued to operate. However the NUJ urged its member journalists not to work there. Many NUJ members, known as "refuseniks", refused to go to Wapping.

Enough printers were employed – 670 in all – to produce the same number of papers that it took 6,800 men to print at the previous plants in Grays Inn Road and Bouverie Street near Fleet Street . The efficiency was obvious and frightened the print unions into holding out for an entire year.

Thousands of union pickets tried to block shipments out of the plant and they injured 574 policemen. There were 1,500 arrests and more than 1,100 violent attacks on TNT Newsfast vehicles but the loyal TNT drivers never gave up on their mission to deliver all the newspapers on time. The pickets failed and Ron Todd General Secretary of the T&GWU as well as his deputy Bill Morris were also unsuccessful in their efforts to persuade TNT’s drivers not to cross the picket lines. The print union tried an illegal secondary boycott and was fined in court, losing all its assets. In the next two years, Britain's national newspapers opened new plants and adopted the new technology as well as the innovative road delivery system pioneered by TNT with far fewer employees.

The TNT Newsfast solution eliminated the unnecessary traditional time consuming activities of labelling and sorting newspaper bundles. TNT provided a direct by road door to door delivery service that was not only faster and more reliable but also less expensive than the previous costly British Rail system which involved transhipping newspapers at railheads. The time taken to deliver News International’s newspapers was reduced by up to two hours every night across the country and over the next few years TNT Newsfast won contracts from the other publishers to deliver all the national newspaper titles as well as most of the consumer magazines published in Great Britain.

The Wapping Dispute transformed the profitability of Britain’s national newspaper industry and eventually all the publishers cut their losses by moving out of Fleet Street.

Background

For years Fleet Street had been living with poor industrial relations and the so-called "Spanish practices" imposed by shop stewards as well as their trade union officials had put limits on the owners that they considered intolerable. On the other hand, the company management team, led by Bill O'Neill,[3] was seeking to have the union accept terms that it considered unacceptable: flexible working, a no-strike clause, the adoption of new technology and the end of the closed shop.

Despite the widespread use of the offset litho printing process elsewhere, the Murdoch papers, in common with the rest of Fleet Street, continued to be produced by the labour-intensive hot-metal Linotype method, rather than being composed electronically. Eddie Shah's Messenger Group, in a long-running and bitter dispute at Warrington, also benefited from the Thatcher government's trade union legislation which allowed employers to de-recognise unions, enabling the Messenger Group to use an alternative workforce and new technology in newspaper production. Journalists could input copy directly, which reduced the need for labour in the print halls, cut costs and shortened production time dramatically.

Although individual journalists (many of whom were members of the National Union of Journalists) worked "behind the wire", the NUJ opposed the move to Wapping and urged its members not to do so without proper negotiations. Many members refused to work at Wapping and became known during the dispute as "refuseniks". The NUJ was represented alongside the Print unions in the negotiations with News International which eventually led to a monetary settlement.

Start of dispute

Immediately after the strike was announced on 24 January 1986, dismissal notices were served on all those taking part in the industrial action, effectively sacking 6,000 employees. As part of a plan that had been developed over many months, the company replaced the workforce with members of the EETPU and transferred its four main titles (The Times, The Sunday Times, The Sun and the News of the World) to the Wapping plant.[4]

Murdoch had led the print unions to think that the Wapping plant was to be used for a new evening newspaper, the London Post.[5] This began what became known as the Wapping dispute. In support of sacked members, the print unions organized regular demonstrations outside the company's premises in Pennington Street, with six pickets posted on Virginia Street and marches of large numbers of people usually converging nearby on The Highway in Wapping. The unions and leading members of the Labour Party also called for a boycott of the four newspapers involved.

The demonstrations outside the Wapping plant were not peaceful,[6] although the Trade Unions maintained that they were committed to pursuing peaceful means to resolve the dispute. Like the miners' strike, large demonstrations were mounted to dissuade workers – in this case journalists and operators of the new printing process as well as TNT’s drivers – from entering the premises, and a large police operation used force to ensure they were not able to physically stop the movement of TNT’s lorries distributing newspapers from the plant.[6]

More than 400 police officers, some TNT drivers and many members of the public were injured, and more than 1,200 arrests made during the dispute.[6] A large-scale police operation was mounted throughout London to ensure the Wapping plant could operate effectively, and the movement of local residents was heavily restricted. To ensure their safety, workers at the plant were often taken to and from work in buses modified to withstand the attacks they came under.[6]

The print unions had encouraged a national boycott of Murdoch's papers, and had been relying on the rail unions to ensure that they were not distributed, a problem Murdoch circumvented by distributing his papers via TNT instead of British Rail’s trains. Despite some public sympathy for the plight of the pickets, the boycott of Wapping's news titles was not successful,[7] and not a single day of production was lost throughout the year of the dispute's duration.

Collapse of strike

News International's strategy in Wapping had strong government support, and enjoyed almost full production and distribution capabilities and a complement of leading journalists. The company was therefore content to allow the dispute to run its course. With thousands of workers having gone for over a year without jobs or pay, the strike eventually collapsed on 5 February 1987.[5]

With the restrictive trade union practices associated with the traditional Fleet Street publishing empires removed, the trade union movement in Britain was irrevocably changed. The actions of News International and Rupert Murdoch, together with the EETPU and the police were criticised[8] – in particular the policing methods that were employed. People in Wapping were largely viewed by the police as sympathetic to the strikers, and were frequently denied access to their own streets and homes.[9] The strike also coincided with the redevelopment of the Docklands, of which Wapping is a part, and saw the end of the traditional association of the area with the Labour Movement.

By 1988, nearly all the national newspapers had abandoned Fleet Street to relocate in the Docklands, and had begun to change their printing practices to those being employed by News International.

References

  1. ↑ Stewart, Bang! A History of Britain in the 1980s (2013) pp 360–371.
  2. ↑ Thatcher promised adequate police but otherwise was little involved. Campbell, Margaret Thatcher: The Iron Lady (2003) p 410. Charles Moore, Margaret Thatcher: At Her Zenith 2: 496–498.
  3. ↑ L Melvern, "The End of the Street," Octavo/Methuen, 1986.
  4. ↑ Lloyd, John (April 25, 2008). "The Battle of Wapping, 1986". Financial Times.
  5. 1 2 Brown, Annie (2 October 2016). "Wapping dispute 30 years on: How Murdoch and Thatcher crushed British workers". Daily Record (Scotland).
  6. 1 2 3 4 "BBC ON THIS DAY: Printers and police clash in Wapping". BBC News. 15 February 1986.
  7. ↑ Nugent, Cathy (20 July 2011). "When Murdoch smashed the unions". Workers' Liberty. Retrieved 10 May 2014.
  8. ↑ Haldane Society of Socialist Lawyers, 1987; Littleton, 1992; Pilger, 1998
  9. ↑ National Council for Civil Liberties, 1986

Further reading

  • Lang, John and Graham Dodkins. Bad News: The Wapping Dispute (Spokesman Books, 2011).
  • Littleton, Suellen M. The Wapping Dispute: An Examination of the Conflict and Its Impact on the National Newspaper Industry (Avebury, 1992).
  • Moore, Charles. Margaret Thatcher: At Her Zenith (2016) 2: 496-98.
  • Stewart, Graham. Bang! A History of Britain in the 1980s. (Atlantic Books Ltd, 2013) pp 360-71.

Sources

  • Haldane Society of Socialist Lawyers, A Case to Answer? A report on the policing of the News International demonstration at Wapping on 24 January 1987, The Haldane Society of Socialist Lawyers, 1987
  • B MacArthur, Eddy Shah: Today and the Newspaper Revolution, David & Charles, 1988
  • L Melvern, The End of the Street, Octavo/Methuen, 1986
  • A Mintz et al., The Picket
  • National Council for Civil Liberties, No Way in Wapping, Civil Liberties Trust, 1986
  • N Oatridge, Wapping ’86: The Strike that Broke Britain’s Newspaper Unions, Coldtype, 2002
  • J Pilger, Hidden Agendas, Vintage, 1998 (Fortress Wapping - extract)
  • M Richardson, Leadership, Mobilisation and the 1986-87 News International dispute, Paper submitted to the Historical Studies in Industrial Relations and the Society for the Study of Labour History Joint Conference, 2002
  • P Wintour, The Rise & Fall of Fleet Street, Hutchinson, 1991
  • Mark Steel, "Reasons to be Cheerful"
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