Ballot result hardens
ON Wednesday October 8, the streets of Tower Hamlets rang out with strong and determined printworkers. The morale was demonstrating were large and the atmosphere was confident and optimistic.
For the seand time in the dispute
strikers had told Murdoch to shove his offer of compensation. The dispute is about jobs and trade union rights and the printworkers are in no mood to vote the issues away.
On that Wednesday a number of
They must have felt very confident that the offer would be accepted. Murdoch was astoundingly quiet - irritated no doubt that the changed from Murdoch Wins!
The police were totally unprepared for the size and sentiments of the demonstration. As printers marched behind the SOGAT Clerical banner down the Commercial Road a small group of police tried to stop them the police were forced to retreat and printers desceribed it as "our 3rd of
Brenda Dean had little to say and
Ano doubt as probably as dismayed) as Murdoch at the NO vote. All her collaboration and negotiating had been thrown
The vote against the offer was won before with only the RIRMA branch voting for acceptance. The crucial issue now is where does the dispute go from here?
There is no way that the presence at Wapping or the momentum of the
Tbe kept up if the same tactics used for the past nine months continue. It is essential now for the grip of the Communist Party over the
"committee" and that firm plans and tactics dispute are drawn up and argued for throughout Fleet Street.
The only way to win is for Fleet
Many of the people central to the organising of
attitudes demonstrations and with most control issues over the tactics used so far are not even strikers. They are branch and chapel bureaucrats and most of them ar hard line Stalinists. The dispute should have been under the control of the workers who were sacked from the beginning. Some of them are now trying to wrest the power from the hacks in order to move the strike on.
Snce the no vote the only strategy that Dean and Dubbins have had is to "go to the TUC"'. They will now halfheartedly attempt to get the TUC to implement the fairly meaningless resolution about the EETPU that was passed at the TUC conference. course it is important to pressurise the TUC to take a stand against the EETPU and for the printers, but their mandate from conference - even if
resolution was followed to the letter — is very weak and will have no significant effect on the outcome of the dispute. Following the betrayal of the miners there can be no doubt that Willis and Co. have no guts for a fight, particularly prior to a General Election.
The only strategy that the CP has come up with since the no vote is to call for an increased boycott and a levy throughout SOGAT and the
Attitudes following the no vote are hardening. The nature of strikes has
hanged over the past five year: Previously a long was likely to sustain support and was characterised by a drift away by the strikers. With the increasingly hostile attitudes to unions and the green light
smash unions wherever possible, long and bitter struggles have become a teature of industrial relations. This is also to do bureaucracy to support the kind of action which can win strikes quickly legislation has been far reaching and
The miners' strike, the Barking Addenbrookes Silentnight strike have all been long but have been strikes where a high percentage of strikers have stuck with the picket and with the dispute. Long struggles now make the workers more determined, particularly where the Socialist Viewpoint No. 14 November-December 1986 p3
Ware jobs and trade union "But, as the miners' strike showed
Othe most determined strongest workers cannot stay forever. This month will be critical in deciding which way the print strike
People will not continue to go down Wednesdays to be led to the front of the plant, herded together where the
Tand treated to a few boring speeches from the Communist Paty hacks. But, with Fleet Street out the effect could be entirely different. There would be massive prssure on Murdoch from the other papers to settle. With the additional input of the Fleet Street workers there could be effective picketing of Wapping which would stop the News International titles from getting to the news stands.
Fleet Street out the TGWU could be pressurised to stop their
scabbing by
Murdoch is not happy with this dispute. When he enginered it he could not have envisage that it would maintaining security at the plant, the using in and out of scabs, the scab turnover rate are all biting. Vehicles are constantly being damaged. Two weeks ago 17 of the "white mice" fleet of transit vans which scurry around the streets at 2 and 3 am were bricked in independent episodes. Lorries and scab coaches are being hit all the
But the dispute is also taking its toll October two people, one a strike sentenced to six months in prison. The arrests and beatings by police are still occuring daily.
strikes and have criminal arising from the dispute. from Labur Research showed that one out of six of the sacked workers hav been arrested during the dispute, a higher ratio than striking miners. As the strike continues frustrations get worse and violence becomes more common and the courts harsher sentences.
This dispute has not been highly
The 9-