Anti-union laws NGA leaders climb dowr

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ON WEDNESDAY 18th, the leadership of the NGA print union voted in effect to accept defeat in its fight with Messenger Newspapers and its union-busting boss Eddie Shah.

The national council voted to 'purge its contempt of court' This means that the union will pay £675,000 in fines (and more in costs), apologise to the court, and undertake to withdraw any unlawful action.

The NGA must not only drop any plans to restore the mass pickets at Shah's scab printlocal advertisers not to use the Messenger freesheets.

Formally, the dispute with Shah is still on. Formally, the NGA and unions supporting it hope to reverse the TUC's policy at the September congress. But they have shied away from any action to pursue the dispute here and now, such as campaigning for a recall TUC.

The shameful decision came just one day after Shah sacked seven members of the National Union of Journalists at his office in Stockport for refusing to cross the NGA picket lines. These NUJ members who stuck by basic trade union principles have now been left high and dry by the NGA.

According to the Financial Times, "Some left-wingers argued strongly that mass picketing should be restored and that the union could not allow a breach of the closed shop at a time when new technology was threatening the whole union.

'The majority view was that the union needs to maintain its strength for those new technology fights and the Messenger would have to be 'mothballed'.

The NGA leaders would like to forget Warrington. But the print employers won't forget it.

Shah's victory will encourage other bosses to try to switch to non-union operation. The NGA's only defence against such moves is boycotts and secondary pickor NEIL Kinnock had a message for one million unemployed people this week.

He told them what the new. glamorous, businesslike, realistic Labour Party would mean for them.

Staying on the dole queue.

Labour's promise at the 1983 general election to bring down unemployment to one million BRITISH Rail Have stepped back from confrontation again over the laying of fibreoptic cables for the Mercury telecommunications firm, the first private competitor to British Telecom.

They originally planned to run a cable-laying train from Chesterfield to Sheffield on Monday January 16. Faced with opposition from the rail union NUR, they Martin eting - action unlawful under the Tory anti-union legislation.

Once the NGA has submitted to that legislation, it stands wide open to decimation.

Decisions by the NGA to take a harder line on computer typesetting are thus largely empty words.

The NGA's other tack now seems to be trying to poach members from the NUJ. It is negotiating deals to have subediting (NUJ work) including in NGA members' jobs. The other side of this is that typesetting (NGA work) is included in NUJ members' jobs.

This seems to mean accepting a squeeze on the total of NUJ and NGA jobs and trying to make sure that the NGA gets as much as possible of what's left.

But new technology poses a threat to all the unions in the print industry. They can hope to fight back effectively only with solidarity.

To accept a law which bans solidarity and then to try to make up for it by poaching from other unions, is the worst way to go about it.

Inside, page 15: The NGA's road to defeat THIS is not Norman Tebbit.

The scoundrel in the photo above is Robert Maxwell, the former MP and boss of the prin company BPCC.

Maxwell took the printworkers' union SOGAT 82 to court. Under the Tory anti-union laws he threatened to have the union's funds confiscated. For the moment he kas drawn back from going ahead with this.

Mr Maxwell is a former Labour MP. He is still a member of the Labour Party. He was, until recently, on the General Committee of Oxford East constitueney Labour Party.

Mr Maxwell is also a trade unionist — a member of ASTMS!

This is not ridiculous. It is out rageous.

Would we let Norman Tebbit join the Labour Party? Should a millionaire employer who uses the anti-union laws and the bosses' courts to threaten the very existence of one trade union be allowed to continue in memwership of another?

Mr Maxwell should immediately be expelled from both ASTMS and the Labour Party.

Recently Maxwell's ward, Headington, moved the following resolution at the GC, which voted unanimously for it:

''The Oxford East Constituen cy Labour Party finds the recent actions of Robert Maxwell, namely:

• a statement made concerning the party in the period leading up to the May 1983 local elections, and • his attitude to the trade unions inside his organisation, incompatible with those of a Labour Party member.

'Further we instruct the Oxford party agent to write to Robert Maxwell informing him of the Part. " concern on this matter, asking him to reconsider his position within the Parly"

Drive this scoundrel out of the LAST Saturday's Special Delegate Conference (SDC) of the National Union of Journalists closed without a decision to restore official backing to the chapel at Dimbleby Newspapers in Richmond.

The ten members there have been on strike for three months, boycotting the anti-union Nottingham printers T. Bailey Forman.

Last month, the NUJ's Emergency Committee in a 4-2 vote agreed to call off the official strike and appeal to the House of Lords over the interpretation of company law.

Official NUJ statements from the conference make it clear that delegates rejected calls made from some branches to act only within the law and ballot all members before any action is taken outside the law.

NUJ policy on the issue is not to comply with any legislation that erodes basic trade union rights.

But if the policy remains intact, the decision on whether to implement it has been left in the hands of an Executive with a right wing majority. Rather than the conference issuing a clear call for the Executive to reissue the strike instruction immediately after the Lords decision, those on the Executive who are determined not to confront the courts have the opening they need.

This opening was created by the Executive's Emergency Comwas adopted by the Executive and has not been closed off by Saturday's conference.

To counter this danger NUJ members must continue workplace collections and redouble demands that the Executive give official support and declare a plan of action and campaign for it immediately after the Lords decision.

It is necessary to organise in chapels and branches for canpaigning • meetings that report pare mandatory meetines. stripes- the ware Manualor mcclues, surikes pickets and occupation of the union offices immediately the courts impose fines, sequestration or other interference.

Local action committees should be set up by members of the NUJ and other unions who have been attacked or threatened by the state or who know that they may be next in line for such treatment if the employers succeed in the print.

A joint campaign for action with other unions must also include the early recall of the TUC to reverse the scandalous decision, taken last December, not to back the NGA.

Such calls should be jointly made in public and provide a rallying call to all trade unionists seeking a way forward to defend their own organisations.

*Rush donations to: Dimbleby NUJ Dispute Fund,

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works in Warrington, but even withdraw the NGA's appeal to

Expel this scoundrel