Wapping dispute
Encyclopedia
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 of UK industrial relations. It started on 24 January 1986 when some 6,000 newspaper workers went on strike after protracted negotiation with their employers, News International
(parent of Times Newspapers and News Group Newspapers, and chaired by Rupert Murdoch
). News International had built and clandestinely equipped a new printing plant for all its titles in the London district of Wapping
, and when the print unions announced a strike it activated this new plant with the assistance of the Electrical, Electronic, Telecommunications and Plumbing Union
(EETPU). Although individual members of the National Union of Journalists
went to work in Wapping and NUJ Chapels continued to operate, the National Union continued to urge their members not to work inside the wire unless there was an agreement covering the transfer to Wapping and the responsibilities taken on by journalists. Many NUJ members accepted this advice and refused to go to Wapping. During the dispute they became known as "refusenik
s".
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 team led by Bill O'Neill
, 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 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 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 improving 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 their members not to go without proper negotiations. Many members refused to go and became known during the dispute as "refusenik
s". The NUJ was represented alongside the Print unions in the negotiations with News International which eventually led to a monetary settlement.
, 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 organized regular demonstrations outside the company's premises in Pennington Street, with six pickets posted on Virginia Street and marches 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 always peaceful, 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 - from entering the premises, and a large police operation used force to ensure they were not able to physically stop the movement of lorries distributing newspapers from the plant. More than 400 police officers and many members of the public were injured, and more than 1,000 arrests made during the dispute. 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.
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. Despite some public sympathy for the plight of the pickets, the boycott of Wapping's news titles was not successful, and not a single day of production was lost throughout the year of the dispute's duration.
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 — 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. 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.
UK miners' strike (1984–1985)
The UK miners' strike was a major industrial action affecting the British coal industry. It was a defining moment in British industrial relations, and its defeat significantly weakened the British trades union movement...
, a significant turning point in the history of the trade union
Trade union
A trade union, trades union or labor union is an organization of workers that have banded together to achieve common goals such as better working conditions. The trade union, through its leadership, bargains with the employer on behalf of union members and negotiates labour contracts with...
movement and of UK industrial relations. It started on 24 January 1986 when some 6,000 newspaper workers went on strike after protracted negotiation with their employers, News International
News International
News International Ltd is the United Kingdom newspaper publishing division of News Corporation. Until June 2002, it was called News International plc....
(parent of Times Newspapers and News Group Newspapers, and chaired by Rupert Murdoch
Rupert Murdoch
Keith Rupert Murdoch, AC, KSG is an Australian-American business magnate. He is the founder and Chairman and CEO of , the world's second-largest media conglomerate....
). News International had built and clandestinely equipped a new printing plant for all its titles in the London district of Wapping
Wapping
Wapping is a place in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets which forms part of the Docklands to the east of the City of London. It is situated between the north bank of the River Thames and the ancient thoroughfare simply called The Highway...
, and when the print unions announced a strike it activated this new plant with the assistance of the Electrical, Electronic, Telecommunications and Plumbing Union
Electrical, Electronic, Telecommunications and Plumbing Union
The Electrical, Electronic, Telecommunications and Plumbing Union, known as the EETPU was a British trade union formed in 1968 as a union for electricians.-History:...
(EETPU). Although individual members of the National Union of Journalists
National Union of Journalists
The National Union of Journalists is a trade union for journalists in the United Kingdom and the Republic of Ireland. It was founded in 1907 and has 38,000 members. It is a member of the International Federation of Journalists .-Structure:...
went to work in Wapping and NUJ Chapels continued to operate, the National Union continued to urge their members not to work inside the wire unless there was an agreement covering the transfer to Wapping and the responsibilities taken on by journalists. Many NUJ members accepted this advice and refused to go to Wapping. During the dispute they became known as "refusenik
Refusenik
Refusenik originally referred to citizens of the former Soviet Union who were refused permission to emigrate.Refusenik or refusnik may also refer to:*An Israeli conscientious objector, see Refusal to serve in the Israeli military...
s".
Background
For years Fleet StreetFleet Street
Fleet Street is a street in central London, United Kingdom, named after the River Fleet, a stream that now flows underground. It was the home of the British press until the 1980s...
had been living with poor industrial relations – the so-called "Spanish practices
Spanish practices
The terms Spanish practices or old Spanish customs are United Kingdom expressions that refer to irregular or restrictive practices in workers' interests. Typically, these are arrangements that have been negotiated in the past between employers and unions....
" had put limits on the owners that they considered intolerable. On the other hand, the company management team led by Bill O'Neill
Bill O'Neill
William John O'Neill was an outfielder in Major League Baseball who played for the Boston Americans , Washington Senators and Chicago White Sox . O'Neill was a switch-hitter and threw right-handed...
, 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 end of the closed shop
Closed shop
A closed shop is a form of union security agreement under which the employer agrees to hire union members only, and employees must remain members of the union at all times in order to remain employed....
.
Despite the widespread use of the offset litho printing process elsewhere, the Murdoch papers in common with the rest of Fleet Street
Fleet Street
Fleet Street is a street in central London, United Kingdom, named after the River Fleet, a stream that now flows underground. It was the home of the British press until the 1980s...
continued to be produced by the hot-metal and labour-intensive Linotype
Linotype machine
The Linotype typesetting machine is a "line casting" machine used in printing. The name of the machine comes from the fact that it produces an entire line of metal type at once, hence a line-o'-type, a significant improvement over manual typesetting....
method, rather than being composed electronically
Desktop publishing
Desktop publishing is the creation of documents using page layout software on a personal computer.The term has been used for publishing at all levels, from small-circulation documents such as local newsletters to books, magazines and newspapers...
. Eddie Shah's Messenger group, in a long-running and bitter dispute at Warrington
Warrington
Warrington is a town, borough and unitary authority area of Cheshire, England. It stands on the banks of the River Mersey, which is tidal to the west of the weir at Howley. It lies 16 miles east of Liverpool, 19 miles west of Manchester and 8 miles south of St Helens...
had benefited from the Thatcher
Margaret Thatcher
Margaret Hilda Thatcher, Baroness Thatcher, was Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1979 to 1990...
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 improving 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 their members not to go without proper negotiations. Many members refused to go and became known during the dispute as "refusenik
Refusenik
Refusenik originally referred to citizens of the former Soviet Union who were refused permission to emigrate.Refusenik or refusnik may also refer to:*An Israeli conscientious objector, see Refusal to serve in the Israeli military...
s". 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 Jan 24, 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 TimesThe Times
The Times is a British daily national newspaper, first published in London in 1785 under the title The Daily Universal Register . The Times and its sister paper The Sunday Times are published by Times Newspapers Limited, a subsidiary since 1981 of News International...
, The Sunday Times
The Sunday Times (UK)
The Sunday Times is a Sunday broadsheet newspaper, distributed in the United Kingdom. The Sunday Times is published by Times Newspapers Ltd, a subsidiary of News International, which is in turn owned by News Corporation. Times Newspapers also owns The Times, but the two papers were founded...
, The Sun
The Sun (newspaper)
The Sun is a daily national tabloid newspaper published in the United Kingdom and owned by News Corporation. Sister editions are published in Glasgow and Dublin...
and the News of the World
News of the World
The News of the World was a national red top newspaper published in the United Kingdom from 1843 to 2011. It was at one time the biggest selling English language newspaper in the world, and at closure still had one of the highest English language circulations...
) 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 organized regular demonstrations outside the company's premises in Pennington Street, with six pickets posted on Virginia Street and marches usually converging nearby on The Highway
The Highway
The Highway, formerly known as the Ratcliffe Highway, is a mile-long road in the East End of London, with several historic landmarks nearby. The route dates back to Roman times. In the 19th century it had a very notorious reputation for vice and crime and was the site of the infamous Ratcliff...
in Wapping. The unions and leading members of the Labour Party
Labour Party (UK)
The Labour Party is a centre-left democratic socialist party in the United Kingdom. It surpassed the Liberal Party in general elections during the early 1920s, forming minority governments under Ramsay MacDonald in 1924 and 1929-1931. The party was in a wartime coalition from 1940 to 1945, after...
also called for a boycott of the four newspapers involved.
The demonstrations outside the Wapping plant were not always peaceful, 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 - from entering the premises, and a large police operation used force to ensure they were not able to physically stop the movement of lorries distributing newspapers from the plant. More than 400 police officers and many members of the public were injured, and more than 1,000 arrests made during the dispute. 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.
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. Despite some public sympathy for the plight of the pickets, the boycott of Wapping's news titles was not successful, 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.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 — 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. 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
Labour movement
The term labour movement or labor movement is a broad term for the development of a collective organization of working people, to campaign in their own interest for better treatment from their employers and governments, in particular through the implementation of specific laws governing labour...
.
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.