In 1981, Thatcher allowed the media baron Rupert Murdoch, an ardent admirer of hers, as she was of him, to buy The Times and the Sunday Times without any reference to the Monopolies Commission. Murdoch also bought a half-interest and control of Britain’s only satellite television service, despite the fact that Thatcher’s own Home Secretary found the deal “not technically legal”, a far cry from the treatment dished out to the Liverpool councillors.
In 1985, in a bid to build his media empire, Murdoch staged a pre-planned showdown with the print unions. The millionaire tycoon had invested more than £100 million in Wapping and another satellite plant at Kinning Park, Glasgow, but both lay idle as a result of the objections of the print unions. “That’s where we came in”, stated Eric Hammond, leader of the electricians’ union, in his memoirs. Hammond explained that his secret talks between the EETPU and Murdoch were set up through extreme right-winger Woodrow Wyatt:
“Having set out the scenario, Murdoch, whose American newspaper empire had shed thousands of staff as new technology had been introduced, made it clear he wanted to do the same in the UK. What could we do to help, Murdoch asked impassively. Could our members set up the machinery? ‘Not only that,’ I told him, ‘but they could operate it as well.’ There was an almost audible click as Rupert suddenly realised that here was an opportunity to end print union power once and for all. He turned to me and said, “Eric, I think we might be able to do a deal.’”[2]
With these immortal words, Hammond went on to explain his treacherous union-busting strategy of recruiting electricians to work at the Wapping newspaper plant.
The ‘sparks’ would become printers on computer. We had broken the mould. By the time details leaked out in July, it was too late for the print unions to do anything about it. My confidence had increased with my experience as general secretary. I had a growing conviction in the correctness of my union’s commonsense policies and its right to achieve its own destiny, unimpeded by the Luddites who inhabited certain trade union headquarters.[3]
Murdoch demanded a legally binding agreement from the SOGAT and the NGA demanding that employees would undertake work “with complete flexibility. There will be no demarcation lines… The starting and finishing times of an employee may be changed upon… a day’s notice… manning levels will be determined by the employer…New technology may be adopted at any time … There will be no closed shop…” Industrial action would also be forbidden. Basically Murdoch was asking the unions to sign away their rights.
When the time came, he deliberately provoked a dispute at Wapping to break the power of the print unions. For months he had been secretly moving non-union staff into Wapping and was discussing with his senior executives about how they could sack thousands of workers who had been given “assurances” that their jobs were safe. Management had told the unions that Wapping was to be used only to print the new London evening paper The London Post, but the plan was to switch all titles to the new plant. In January 1986 – a day before the move to the new plant at Wapping – some 6,000 printworkers at News International received dismissal notices. Not only had a deal been agreed with the EETPU leaders, but also a contract had also been signed with Thorns National Transport (TNT) to distribute the papers without union labour.
When the showdown came it was an extremely bitter confrontation that would last for over twelve months. It was a fight to the death at Wapping. The unions were demanding nothing less than full reinstatement of their members. Following the defeat of the miners, thousands of workers and youth came to express their solidarity in late night and weekend pickets and demonstrations at Wellclose Square. Mass picketing attempted to close down News International at Wapping, but as with the miners, they were faced with the full might of the state. To assist their friend Murdoch, the Tories employed the Metropolitan police, reinforced by police from outside London, to attack and arrest pickets, using the most violent and provocative means.
Labour MP Tony Benn described what he saw in a Parliamentary debate over the issue:
The mounted police advanced out of the plant exactly as the tactical options manual says that they should. They ran into the crowd. They were covered by riot police who did several things. First they ran indiscriminately into the crowd and battered people who had had nothing whatsoever to do with any stones that might have been thrown. . . They surrounded the bus that was acting as an ambulance. One man had a heart attack and I appealed over the loudspeaker for the police to withdraw to allow an ambulance to come. None was allowed for 30 minutes. When the man was put on a trestle a police horse jostled it and the man nearly fell off as he was carried out to the ambulance. The police surrounded the park where the meeting took place. They surrounded the area so that people could not escape.[4]
In the first two weeks of the dispute there were 310 police officers present at Wapping each night. On the night of 15 February 1986 the numbers of police climbed dramatically to 1,029. By May, the numbers had further increased to 1,800. No effort was spared to defeat the print unions. By the end of December, the estimated policing costs were an additional £5.3 million. Police horses were first used indiscriminately at Wapping on 22 February. They ploughed into the crowds of pickets, clearing the plant entrance for the scab delivery lorries. It should be remembered that the combined weight of horse and rider was almost a ton. Of the 1,370 pickets arrested by the end of the dispute, some 1,058 had been convicted on various charges by February 1987, twelve months after the start of the dispute. Tragedy struck on 10 January 1987, when a picket, Michael Delaney, was struck and killed by a scab TNT lorry outside the plant.
Once again the TUC leaders played a lamentable role. Instead of throwing their full weight behind the 6,000 sacked at Wapping, on 26 November the TUC General Council voted not to discipline the EETPU for its role in assisting Murdoch. The failure of the TUC to rally to the printworkers’ cause eventually doomed the dispute. In early February 1987 the printworkers went down to heavy defeat. Union organisation was broken at Wapping, a demoralising blow to workers everywhere. The EEPTU was shown the door, in much the same fashion as a once-faithful dog, after it had fulfilled its strike-breaking role. In its place Murdoch set up his own company union, the News International Staff Association, which was granted a monopoly at the Wapping plant.
In 2002, for his services to capitalism, Murdoch was recognised as Britain’s greatest living businessman. Richard Desmond, the notorious owner of Express newspapers as well as a string of pornographic titles, said: “I would not have the business I have today unless he [Murdoch] had done what he did to make Britain a fairer place.”
The failure of the TUC resulted not only in the tragic defeat of printers at Wapping, but also the victimisation of seafarers on the P&O shipping line. During the P&O dispute, the shipping bosses acted to break the union and impose harsh conditions on the seafarers. They derecognised the National Union of Seamen, sacked the workforce, and brazenly advertised for scab labour to replace union members’ jobs. The ensuing battle, as with the NUM, resulted in the union’s funds being sequestrated.
Once again, this onslaught was a direct challenge to the fundamental rights of trade unionism. Either the NUS would have to call a national strike or capitulate to the employers. There was no middle road. But the leadership of the NUS lacked the necessary determination, despite the courage shown by its members. They gave in without a fight. The NUS leader Sam McClusky, as a justification for his personal capitulation, announced he “had little choice but to lead from the head.” This was euphemism for no leadership at all. The retreat and capitulation of the union leaders allowed the ferry companies to slash the workforce, adding hundreds of seafarers’ jobs to the scrap heap.
These tragic defeats added to the general lack of confidence felt at the time, and were grist to the mill of the trade union bureaucracy. For the latter, retreat and surrender became a normal way of life. The downward spiral of capitulation, together with the right-wing stranglehold at the top of the movement, became a self-fulfilling process, one element feeding upon the other. However, in 1987, under mounting pressure from below, the TUC was forced to order the EETPU to withdraw from three single-union deals at Yuasa, the Japanese battery firm, at Thorn-EMI and at Orion, another Japanese-owned electronics operation, on the grounds that it was infringing the rights of other TUC affiliates.
Despite attempts to establish a Code of Practice, single-union no-strike deals remained an open sore that would eventually split the TUC. Finally, when a split with the electricians became inevitable, the TUC vacillated, hoping to placate Hammond. But they were forced to suspend and then expel the EETPU as a result of the groundswell of pressure from the union ranks, disgusted by the strikebreaking role of Hammond and his right-wing clique. The expulsion of the 225,000-strong EETPU represented the most serious split in the history of the TUC.
The EETPU’s expulsion then provoked a split within the union itself. A sizeable left grouping, the Flashlight group, under the influence of the Communist Party, split away to form the tiny EPIU. This split-away was a grave mistake. Their argument to split from the EETPU was based on the spurious notion of needing to remain members of a TUC-based union. This was a phoney argument. Much as one may sympathise with the sentiments of the Flashlight group, they were leading trade unions up the proverbial garden path. To break away from the EETPU only left the union, and the vast bulk of the members, even more firmly under the grip of the right-wing clique around Hammond. The whole episode simply played into Hammond’s hands.
Similarly, it was also a major mistake for a section of the 1,200-strong London Press branch of the EETPU, again under the influence of the CP, to propose leaving the EETPU to join the print union SOGAT. Had the Bridlington Agreement not been invoked, this would have led to a disaster. The split would have enabled the bosses to play one section off against the other. Of course, the Hammonds of this world all crowed they had defeated the Left’s splitting tactics.
“The Communists had been beaten and prevented from stealing our branch”, wrote Hammond. “Their hostility to the EETPU increased and, for our part, we still had a score to settle with the print unions.”[5]
Had the Left remained in the EETPU, fighting every inch of the way, they would have been in a far stronger position in 1992 at the time of the merger to form the AEEU, and speeded up the eventual demise of the right wing. Rather than organising a new union, they should have been redoubling their efforts to challenge Hammond. Unfortunately, guided by impatience, they decided to look for a short-cut where none existed. At bottom this action reflected a lack of faith in the workers to change their unions. The 4,000-strong EPIU, which remained impotent in face of the 225,000-strong EETPU, later ended up disappearing in a merger with the TGWU. Once again, the experience of breakaway unions ended in a blind alley.