[750 SOGAT members at Times Newspapers have been…]

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750 SOGAT members at Times Newspapers have been sacked and the Times and Sunday Times are off the streets, as open war erupts once more in Fleet Street.

The two week old dispute was made official on Thursday 26th when management dismissed the 750.

The issue is that Times management broke agreed bargaining arrangements by appointing a picture library manager from SOGAT 82's supervisory section (which has no laid-down negotiating rights with management) rather than, as normal, from the union's clerical section.

The dispute intensified at the weekend when Sunday Times editor Andrew Neil suspended 800 workers without pay and warned them that the future of limes Newspapers was in Jeopardy. The dispute has cost the company 21.5 million so far. Talks are due to take place this week. the Communist Party's 'Liaison Committee for the Defence of Trade Unions' in London was attended by about 200 delegates. The meeting heard denunciations of the Tories and their plans for further anti-union legislation, but little positive in the way of proposals for action.

The conference was closed early, at 1.30pm, on the pretext of snow in the North, when it seemed that the only people left asking to speak were those who would criticise the platform and call for a more militant policy.

An LCDTU declaration dia call for no more talks between unions and government on anti-union laws, for opposition to privatisation, and for a campaign for a 35 hour week.

Although the TUC general council received some condemnation over their sell-out of the NGA dispute, delegates were told to wait until TUC annual congress in September, instead of fighting now for a recall TUC to settle accounts with Murray and the others who scabbed on the NGA.

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