Murdoch's axing of unions led to scandal in the media

[Omaha Steve]

http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/opinion/columnists/eamon-mccann/murdochs-axing-of-unions-led-to-scandal-in-the-media-16028037.html

By Eamonn McCann
Wednesday, 27 July 2011

Michael Delaney (19), died after being run over by a lorry in east London on a Saturday night in January 1987. An inquest jury found that he had been a victim of unlawful killing. But nobody has ever been prosecuted.

Michael had been among trade unionists picketing the News International plant at Wapping against the sacking of more than 5,000 workers and the derecognition of unions. The dispute lasted almost a year.

The Metropolitan Police worked in coordination with NI executives throughout. Police attacks on the picket-lines were a regular occurrence. Saturday nights - when it was vital for the company to ensure that its prize asset, the News of the World, reached the shops - saw particularly brutal confrontations. In at least one instance, mounted police cavalry-charged directly into the pickets to clear a path for lorry-loads of copies of the NotW.

Anyone wondering how the Murdochs and the Met developed a relationship so close it eventually became scandalous - that's how. Anyone wondering how the "newsroom culture" which facilitated phone-hacking developed - here's how.

Murdoch's line at the time was that the print unions had been destroying the newspaper industry through overstaffing, signing in "ghost workers", falsely claiming for overtime and general skiving. Thus the need for a midnight flit from the company's King's Cross office to purpose-built premises at Wapping. The dodgy activities of some print workers were of little importance to Murdoch. What irked him was union organisation, specifically, the print unions' ability to defend members. Getting rid of a bolshie father or mother of chapel (shop steward) was no easy matter. But the myth of Murdoch saving the industry from union malpractice has persisted.

The day the move to Wapping was announced, journalists met in the King's Cross newsroom. 'Refusniks' argued that journalists' rights and standards would be shredded if they collaborated with management in destroying the printers' organisation. Others maintained the printers brought their problems on themselves. The key speech came from Sunday Times editor Andrew Neill who made an impassioned plea for journalists to save the papers. The Wapping move was a done deal: if the journalists didn't go along, the papers would collapse.

Read more: http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/opinion/columnists/eamon-mccann/murdochs-axing-of-unions-led-to-scandal-in-the-media-16028037.html#ixzz1U67NOcTD

FULL story at link.

[dipsydoodle]

1. The Wapping dispute

It lasted over a year http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wapping_dispute

Subject close to me - one of my pals was Imperial Father / Head of all The Chapels of SOGAT : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Society_of_Graphical_and_Allied_Trades