fight to displace the existing leaderships of the print unions.
This same attitude was clear in the aftermath of the latest ballot. With Dean discredited, dismissing press speculation she might be forced to resign; with her line for the strike rejected; and with the Conference as
Othe scene was set to press home the advantage.
Instead, the leaders of the "no" vote campaign immediately began to retreat from the fight, denying
intention of challenging Dean's leadership. Behind the scenes of the conference a
Ideal was stitched up. under which Dean made a pious
about the News International dispute being centrally about jobs - in exchange for a unanimous vote for resolution which hands exclusive control over the dispute to the right wing NEC, and restricts SOGAT to policies for the fight which do not break the law!
Having aserted for the first time the decisive voice of the rank and file over the leadership, the CP/Morning Star (with the Star selling over 250 copies a day among only 400
conference delegates) led the rush to surrender that influence. Worse than simply restoring the status quo prior to the ballot, the Conference resolution shuts the door on the steps vital to escalate the dispute, which include:
• The resimposition of the instruction to SOGAT's distribution workers across the country to boycott the handling of Murdoch's four titles;
• Mass picketing of the distribution depots to enforce this instruction, backed up by disciplinary action against those scabbing on it;
• Action to mobilise the SOGAT and NGA Fleet Street membership in supporting action to up the stakes strengthening of
doubtless including of delegates from depots which have scabbed from the outset on this crucial dispute — left sacked militants with a handful of banal phrases and a continuation of the
ineffective individual "boycott" campaign:
Though Dean is now called upon by conterence to press demands that the EETPU either call out its scab members at Wapping or be expelled likelihood of SOGAT making this a
fight. NGA Dubbins, supposedly committed to a similar policy, could be seen at the executives engaged in friendly banter with EETPU Godfather Eric offer had been clear before the ballot was complete: Dubbins, having been pulled into line by mass meetings had played matters more cleverly Dean, who plainly weeks of increasing isolation and top
Wto demoralise SOGAT members to force through acceptance. But the NGA is equally lacking in any strategy to escalate the dispute - and with its Conference concerted rank and file campaign for increased action.
The other union key to the dispute is of course the NUJ, whose Annual Delegate Meeting voted by a narrow majority to urge its NEC to initiate
Faction against the 600 NUJ members scabbing on a union instruction not to work at Wapping.
Despite a declaration from the NEC to conference that it would begin action at the first opportunity, the May NEC meeting contemptuously reversed this and voted by thumping 14-7 to. take no action against the four scab chapels.
Behind this retreat lies a refusal by the right wing to contront the big Fleet Street chapels, backed up by another sordid stitch up between the right wing leadership (around General Secretary Harry Conroy)
THE A TIMES o Thatcher t and a cabal of Morning supporters strategically organiser Mike Smith, a Star man, has been central to the continuation of NUJ links with and services to the scab chapels, in clear defiance of )rganiser Peta Van Den bergh wa: placed at Conroy's special request ir charge of the NUI's tokenistic Wapping strike office -chief activity has consisted of seeking "refusniks" who have pulled out of
It is indeed ironic that the Morning Star should be campaigning for a no vote in the SOGAT ballot while its comrades in the NUJ bureaucracy work so hard to service the Wapping scabs and divert the strikers from a
Cof feeling in any way conference mandates, the right wing on the NUJ NEC has begun to assert its new hard line, openly threatening a witch-hunt of the left wing sponsors Libya passed at Conference.
Their arguments that if carefully nurtured and subjected to Mike Smith's Ruskin College rhetoric the scabs at Wapping might eventually Socialist Viewpoint No. 13 July 1986 p8
come out on strike have been shot to pieces by the fiasco of the Sun chapel - once lyingly vaunted as a model NUJ "closed shop" and a symbol of "chapel power".
Nineteen weeks after the dispute began, the chapel held a ballot and voted (with knees knocking like castanets) 94 to 80 not to continue working at Wapping. But their vote had nothing to do with the print dispute: it was a pathetic pressure ploy to extract more money from Murdoch. er sing ked. Prospective their scab (and Prospective
Ffor Stevenage) Malcolm Withers admitted that those who abstained or voted against the proposal would probably even scab
their own wretched colleagues and ensure that the paper still came out, Murdoch responded to their plea by trebbling his pay offer to an extra £40 per week and throwing in a range of other promises (including gymnasium and a swimming pool behind the barbed wire!).
Predictably the chapel eagerly accepted the new offer, and the show of resistance to Murdoch collapsed. A similar display of spinelessness can be expected from the other Wapping NUJ scabs — among whom are a dozen or more members of the Communist Party.
Now is the most testing time for the print dispute. Having turned the right way at the crossroads of the ballot, the rank and file have become stuck at traffic lights, where they are finding that their leaders have dug up the road forward.
The same basic line is needed now as was needed - and rejected - at the start of the struggle:
• Trade union action to shut down Murdoch's distribution. Defy the
• Spread the fight to Fleet Street -printworkers!
• Kick out the scabs in the main unions SOGAT, Expel the EETPU from the TUC. depots and TNT warehouses. Demand the TGWU take action against scab
• Revitalise and spread the support committees that have organised local meetings, cash and picketing! ONE solitary victimised miner who staged a picket outside Yorkshire's Markham Main colliery succeeded in turning back 1.200 of his fellow miners. Management claimed
that the day's action had cost £800,000 in lost production -and agreed to talks on the sacking of the miner, Mike Silcock.
Why the silence on the