Wapping dispute
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The Wapping dispute was, along with the miners' strike of 1984-5, a significant turning point in the history of the trade union movement and UK industrial relations. It started on 24 January 1986 when some 6,000 newspaper workers went on strike after months of protracted negotiation with their employers, News International (parent of Times Newspapers and News Group Newspapers, chaired by Rupert Murdoch). News International had built and equipped a new printing plant for all its titles at Wapping in secret and when the print unions announced a strike it activated this new plant with the Electrical, Electronic, Telecommunications and Plumbing Union (EETPU) union workers.
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[edit] Background
For years Fleet Street had been living with poor industrial relations – the so-called "Spanish practices" had put limits on the owners that they considered intolerable. On the other hand, the company management was seeking to have the union accept terms that they considered unacceptable: flexible working, a no-strike clause, the adoption of new technology and the abandonment 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 hot-metal and labour-intensive linotype method, rather than being composed electronically. Eddie Shah's Messenger group, in a long-running and bitter dispute at Warrington had benefited from the Thatcher government's trade union legislation to allow employers to de-recognise unions, enabling the company to use an alternative workforce and new technology in newspaper production. Journalists could input copy directly, reducing the need for labour in the print halls, cutting costs and production time dramatically.
[edit] Start of dispute
Immediately after the strike was announced, dismissal notices were served on all those taking part in the industrial action, effectively sacking 6,000 people. As part of a plan that had been developed over many months, the company replaced the workforce with members of EETPU and transferred its four main titles (The Times, The Sunday Times, The Sun and the News of the World) to the Wapping plant. Murdoch had led the print unions to think that the Wapping plant was to be used for a new evening newspaper, the London Post. And so began what became known as the Wapping dispute.
In support of sacked members, the print unions organised regular marches and demonstrations outside the company's premises in Pennington Street and Virginia Street off The Highway. They also called for a boycott of the four newspapers involved.
The pickets outside the Wapping plant were exceptionally violent [1]. More than 400 police officers were injured and more than 1,000 arrests made during the dispute and a large-scale police operation was mounted to ensure the Wapping plant could operate effectively.
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 road haulage carriers instead of trains. And despite some public sympathy for the plight of the pickets, the boycott of Wapping's news titles was not successful, and its business continued unimpeded. Despite the violence of the protests (the Wapping workers had to be bought in to the plant in armoured buses), not a single day of production was lost throughout the year of the dispute's duration.
[edit] Collapse of strike
Despite nightly scenes of violence outside the Wapping plant, Murdoch's strategy had the firm support of the government and a lukewarm acceptance from the journalists employed at Wapping. He was therefore content to allow the dispute to run its course. With thousands of workers having gone for nearly a year without jobs or pay, the strike eventually collapsed on 5 February 1987.
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[1] — 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 streets and homes.[2]. News International titles projected an image of being under siege: The Sun printing a picture of the topless model Samantha Fox on a tank. The strike also coincided with the redevelopment of the Docklands, of which Wapping is a part.
By 1988, nearly all the national newspapers had abandoned Fleet Street for the newly-developed Docklands area and had begun to switch to the newer, less labour-intensive printing practices. It is argued that that without the changes that Wapping initiated many British newspapers would have gone out of business due to chronic unprofitability.
Although it was claimed at the time of the dispute that the new production methods would result in an increase of choice in the British press (the majority were — and remain — conservative in orientation), but in practice this was limited. The Sunday Correspondent was short-lived and The Independent was taken over after a few years and went through periods of financial insecurity, although this now seems to have improved.
[edit] References
- Haldane Society of Socialist Lawyers, A Case to Answer? A report on the policing of the News International demonstration at Wapping on 24th January 1987, The Haldane Society of Socialist Lawyers, 1987
- S Littleton, The Wapping Dispute: An Examination of the Conflict & Its Impact on the National Newspaper Industry, Avebury, 1992
- B MacArthur, Eddy Shah: Today and the Newspaper Revolution, David & Charles, 1988
- L Melvern, The End of the Street, Octavo/Methuen, 1986
- 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
