[nants and strikers Also from Oxford comes turther…]

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nants and strikers Also from Oxford comes turther resolution, committing the NUJ to campaign for a recall TUC congress, to reverse the General Council's decision on the NGA.

A number of branches, together with the Provincial Newspapers Industrial Council, condemn the lifting of the strike instruction at Richmond, and urge that the NEC should give 'full official support and strike pay to our members on Dimbleby Newspapers immediately following the House of Lords decision, irrespective of what that decision may be' Despite the confusion created by the right wing manoeuvres. in the last month, the NUJ's conference of rank and file delegates gives the best chance of reversing a damaging decision, and re-launching the struggle against the Tebbit Act which the TUC General Council did its best to scuttle last month.

For SOGAT members, the fate of the battle against Maxwell is in the much less safe hands of general secretary Bill Keys.

There is no doubt, however, that if SOGAT does stand its ground and fight back against this attack, it is in a vastly more powerful position to win than was the NGA against Eddie Shah's largely non-union operation in Warrington. Full-scale SOGAT boycotts of Maxwell's publications, and of any alternative printer to Radio Times, could be a powerful lever to force Maxwell to reopen the Park Royal plant and abandon the use of Thatcher's laws.

Keys sat on the fence throughout the NGA struggle at Warrington, and mobilised no significant solidarity action, thus weakening SOGAT's case for industrial support from other unions now.

But it's not too late for Keys to come out publicly campaigning against the Tebbit Act, and to withdraw from the backroom talks in which he and Len Murray are engaged with the Tory unionbuster Tom King.

The NGA leaders may be quietly moving to ditch their dispute with Eddie Shah: but this is not an issue which can be gracefully dropped.

The courts and injunctionwielding employers are coming after the unions more aggressively than ever. The Tory laws will shred union strength unless they are stopped soon.

By this weekend we will know whether SOGAT and the NUJ will take up the Tory gauntlet and fight back.

The fight can and must be resumed to reverse the General Council's decision to scab on the NGA, and for those unions who voted against capitulation to pledge full industrial and political support to SOGAT and the NUJ in any stand they may take against the courts.