Wapping Dispute

[MellySingsDoom]

At the talk on the Wapping print dispute recently, it was pointed out that once the dispute was over, Murdoch then made sure that all of the scab workers provided by the EEPTU were sacked without paying up any promised bonuses or increase in wages. Also, the whole Wapping area was in de-facto lockdown by the police, with residents being forced to carry ID to "prove" they lived in the area...

 

[Divisive Cotton]

All of them were sacked? Who ran the machines then?

 

[MellySingsDoom]

DC - the Digger got in new (non-union) workers on the quiet, then gave the EEPTU lot the Monty Burns treatment. There a grim, yet perhaps pertinent sense of "justice" in the scab workers being stabbed in the back by New Intl...

Oh, by the way, there's a book that's been published on Wapping, called "Bad News: The Wapping Dispute", by John Lang and Graham Dodkins. You can get it from Spokesman Books here: http://www.spokesmanbooks.com/acatalog/Trade_Union_Classics.html

 

[nicoatridge]

the whole Wapping area was in de-facto lockdown by the police, with residents being forced to carry ID to "prove" they lived in the area...

I lived in Wapping and we wore badges to signify we were residents (http://www.flickr.com/photos/nicoatridge/6242980445/) but we wore them from choice and more out of defiance of the police than any belief they would influence their behaviour. Many printworkers lived in Wapping and the community at that time was generally sympathetic to the printworkers and pissed off with the police. There were many, many occasions when the police stopped residents getting home, even when they displayed proof of residence, even mothers with kids in prams. People had to sleep at friends houses and some residents even got arrested for insisting they should be allowed to go home - I remember one asking as he was being arrested why he was being arrested and he was told "for being clever". Also because people going home were often using isolated paths and minor roads, cops were more likely to be abusive or violent towards them than they were when press or large numbers of people were about.

There were also many demonstrations by local people in support of the printworkers, and the police sensibly tended to use local coppers (who were good as gold throughout the dispute) to police these rather than the thugs dragooned in from other areas - police from Camden and Tottenham were the worst, the latter particularly with scores to settle after Broadwater Farm.
Another thing that pissed off local residents was that cars were towed away from legitimate on road parking areas at night to allow HGVs from the plant to illegally and noisily use local roads in the middle of the night at speeds in excess of the local speed limits.

 

[Ed Vaughan]

Delighted to see that Eddy (sic) Shah has been arrested... I hope the 12 jurors see through the man's faux persona and convict him.

It was he - Thatcher, Murdoch and Maxwell's puppet - who set this whole train in motion and I hope he burns in Hell.

I was an NGA member - albeit in Manchester - and was 'lifted' twice by plod... once in Warrington and once in Wapping, it wasn't great.

That said, the support we received from the whole trade union movement, local residents and just ordinary, decent people, was superb - and I thank you all.

 

[DaveCinzano]

Welcome aboard Ed (and nico, belatedly)

 

[audiotech]

I was at Warrington, with a police force on the rampage that night, given a green light to do just that by the then Home Secretary, Leon Brittan, who had warned demonstrators to keep away, or suffer the consequences. It turned that these were mass arrests, protesters being taken behind police lines and beaten, batons used indiscriminately etc. I took avoiding action when one plod was about to smash me over the head with his baton.

What's Shah been arrested for?

 

[DaveCinzano]

Accusations of dirty, child-rape noncery.

Obviously, things now being sub judice, we can't comment directly at the matters specifically relating to his guilt or otherwise in the case in question; though that does not preclude expression of more general opinions held about the man, or about his role in history...

 

[ViolentPanda]

Accusations of dirty, child-rape noncery.

Obviously, things now being sub judice, we can't comment directly at the matters specifically relating to his guilt or otherwise in the case in question; though that does not preclude expression of more general opinions held about the man, or about his role in history...

Crap author and crap boss turns out to be crap human being. What a shock!

 

[butchersapron]

This site that developed out of last years Wapping Dispute exhibition has just gone on line - lots of stuff that couldn't be fitted into the exhibition.

Who we are
The News International Dispute Archive project comprises this website and oral history, an online archive, the pamphlet The Workers’ Story, and the exhibition ‘The News International Dispute: 25 years on’.

It has been created by printworkers and trade unionists involved in the dispute. Those of us involved in creating this vital archive of working class history acknowledge in particular the generosity and assistance of Unite/GPM & IT sector, and the support of the National Union of Journalists, the Campaign for Press & Broadcasting Freedom and the Marx Memorial Library.

While the narrative corresponds with the general view of the dispute of these four organisations the project especially gives a voice to the sacked workers and their families whose lives were changed for ever. We dedicate our efforts to them and to the principles for which they fought.