LEFT-WING FRIENDS FOR RUPERT
that union folly turned Wapping into a Murdoch triumph
THE hard Left marked the anniversary of the Wapping move with a bloodthirsty demo, complete with masked assault- troops and Arthur Scargill oratory. But it was merely the ferocious ritual of failure. Rupert Murdoch's victory over the unions, though not yet formalised, is complete, a fact acknowledged by the absence from the occasion of both Neil Kinnock and Norman Willis. What will strike future historians is that the comprehensive nature of Murdoch's triumph is largely due to the folly of union leadership. For the new laws work much more effectively against unions led by the Left and hard-liners, than against moderates prepared to compromise who, above all, do not get their funds entangled in the courts.
The outstanding case is Scargill's own NUM, until 1983 among the strongest of all financially. It ended 1986 with a deficit of £1.86 million on the year, having defaulted on its superannuation scheme payments for three months. The prints unions NGA and Sogat, as a result of the handling of the Wapping dispute, are also in money trou- ble. Both were once rich unions. Brenda Dean of Sogat, whose personal wish to do a deal was undermined by the idiocy of her London militants, admits the union is now `financially crippled'. She calculates that the year has cost Sogat £1.5 million in sequestration and other legal fees, plus £1 million in dispute benefit. Legal actions brought by News International could add at least £1.5 million and perhaps as much as £2.75 million to Sogat's liabilities.
Indeed, NI's own response to the anniversary was to issue a new set of writs seeking compensation for the security mea- sures, including armoured buses, made inevitable by unlawful union acts. Dam- ages in each case can run up to £250,000, and the number of separate actions, de- pending on the evidence, is theoretically limitless. In Sogat's case the provincial members, who earn much less than the Londoners and have shown a greater readi- ness to accept new technology without fuss or blackmail, display a growing lack of sympathy with what they see as a greedy London strike which should be called off forthwith. They have rejected, in a ballot, Sogat's plan to raise fresh funds by a compulsory 58p a week levy on all mem- bers, and there is now desperate talk of selling the union's property, headquarters, convalescent homes and the like.
The National Union of Journalists, forced on by its left wing, which has a narrow majority of the executive, seems bent on an even worse disaster. It is not a powerful union in the sense that the NGA and Sogat once were, because it has a rival in the Institute of Journalists and maintains a closed shop only on some papers. Many of its members despise its political antics, such as the notorious telegram of support for Gaddafi, feel it does little or nothing for them personally, and would be happy to see it broken up and replaced by a non-sectarian professional body.
Against this background, the stupidity of the NUJ in deciding to persecute NUJ members who continue to work at Wap- ping has dismayed even its few remaining friends. There are about 415 all told and the most drastic plan was to expel the lot of them, who are described by one Executive member as 'evil'. In the end, by a margin of one vote, 10-9, it was decided to fine 95 of the delinquents £1,000 each. The criteria by which the sheep were separated from the goats were eccentric even by the standards of a union drum-head court. The evidence of 'guilt' appears to have con- sisted of sightings by pickets and personal bylines in the papers themselves. The defence presented jointly by those found innocent and guilty was ignored. It is most improbable that any of the fines will be paid. What is more likely is that all the `Aren't you supposed to inform me of my rights?' Wapping NUJ members will withold sub- scriptions until the Executive backs down. Some of those fined may use the union's own appeals procedure. Others may take action in the courts and will certainly do so if they are expelled. The NUJ does not possess the money to conduct litigation of the scale and complexity that would follow, and it would face the additional threat of a breakaway union. So once again the Left has blindly pushed a union towards finan- cial disaster and possible disintegration. The weakening of the unions benefits all newspaper managements. They can now not only push through demanning prog- rammes unthinkable a year or two ago but make routine decisions, such as redesign- ing or adding pages, and installing extra units and capacity, which were once sub- ject to union negotiations and financial penalties. The unions know they cannot afford to open up a second front. But while all managements have gained there is no question that Murdoch has gained more. A Wapping tabloid can be produced by a little over 500 employees, as opposed to 2,000 when it was printed just off Fleet Street; in some departments the labour savings have been up to 90 per cent. Moreover, there are no union restraints on expansion, which will triple Murdoch's Wapping print capability by mid-1989. Wapping will soon be the most profitable newspaper operation in the world. Rival newspaper managements still operating within the old union framework cannot match these commercial advantages, so the prospect is that Murdoch's leading position in British newspaper publishing will be- come ever more dominant. From start to finish, left-wing union leaders have proved his best friends.
But there is one important qualification to Murdoch's success story. The reputation of both his quality papers has declined since the Wapping move. The Sunday Times is in a weak state editorially and the present regime there should not be allowed to continue. At 1,147,405 the paper's sales for the second half of 1986 were down more than 100,000 over the comparable period in 1985, while the Sunday Tele- graph's remained stable (suggesting a pre- lude to recovery) and the Observer's rose by 33,500. The December figures indicate that these trends, ominous for the Sunday Times, are continuing. The Times itself has stronger editorial leadership but is woeful- ly lacking in talent, sophistication and style. It now faces much greater competi- tion from a reinvigorated Daily Telegraph and from the Independent, which has de- finitely established itself with a three- month average sale of 302,502 (it averaged 272,180 in December). Both Times papers need much closer supervision than Mur- doch has been giving them. I sympathise with his global dreams, but London is the real key to his empire and should be getting the lion's share of his time and attention
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