Notes on the Newspaper Strike
BY RANDOLPH S. CHURCHILL ing them indefinitely if there is no work for them to do. Some- thing like 22,000 highly skilled, highly paid men are affected. The strike, however, only concerns the pay of 700 men in the electrical and engineering unions. Here, however, is a more cheerful statistic. The strike is saving the consumption of 10,000 tons of newsprint per week. The proprietors expect that the Board of Trade will allow them to use up the accumulated saving in extra pages when the strike is over.
As this is written the deadlock is still complete. The Ministry of Labour is hoping to be able to transfer the negotiations from a district to a national level where the trade union leaders may be expected to be a little more supple than the present negotiators. At one stage the proprietors suggested that they might make the concession of offering some additional 'merit pay.' After an interval of some hours the union leader replied that this would be acceptable 'if it were made universal.'
The Times, which has always regarded itself as an institution rather than a newspaper, has been showing lively signs of breaking away from the NPA cartel. Just as in recent weeki it sought to establish an individual position for itself over news- print, it tried to do so in the early days of the strike. The cartel arrangements of the NPA, which require the solidarity of all its members, only apply in the case of so-called 'unconstitu- tional' strikes. The Times sought to show that the strike was constitutional and that therefore it could go ahead and print, making its own substitute arrangements for electricians and engineers. The other members of the NPA, however, con- vinced it that the strike was unconstitutional inasmuch as the unions did not give 14 days' notice. The unions withdrew their original notice in order to have further talks and when these broke down withdrew their withdrawal. Thus, in fact, say the NPA, the notice was only five days. So Colonel Astor had to accept the view of his fellow proprietors that the strike was un- constitutional and that a solid front must therefore be main- tained. Lord Kemsley's Sunday Times, which prints both in London and Manchester, is a member of the NPA. Moreover, Lord Kemsley prints the northern edition of Lord Camrose's Daily Telegraph in Manchester. So for various reasons connected with the NPA cartel he has thought- it better not to publish the Sunday Chronicle, the Empire News or the Manchester Daily Dispatch. On the other hand he has run the risk of pub- lishing his Manchester Evening Chronicle without employing union engineers or electricians.
When there was a one-day newspaper stoppage last October, the Scotsman incurred the wrath of the Scottish Newspaper Proprietors by printing 70,000 extra copies. The Scotsman had signed no undertaking which made it improper for it to do so, but it was an offence against the etiquette of the newspaper industry for one newspaper to seek to gain in circulation while its competitors were the victims of a strike. The Scotsman's new Canadian proprietor, Mr. Roy Thompson, was hauled over the, coals and promised he would not do it again.
The Manchester Guardian would naturally not offend like Mr. Thompson. None the less, while the national newspapers are stopped it is making a lot of hay. Quite stupid people who have never read the Guardian before are now reading it in thekr clubs or borrowing it from their more enlightened friends. The racing community, in particular, were astonished to note that the Guardian, which naturally never gives 'tips' but only an 'estimate of probabilities' on major races, while predicting wrongly that Oxford would win the boat race, succeeded in forecasting on Saturday the first and second in the Grand National. , The NPA are extremely vexed with Mr. Laurence Scott, of the Manchester Guardian. They are saying that he has sold the pass in Manchester. The Guardian is not a member of the NPA. It negotiates its wage rates independently though these usually conform to those negotiated by the NPA. How- ever, as it is not technically a 'national' newspaper there is no reason why it should not continue to print.
Last Friday the electrical and engineering unions in Man- chester told the Guardian that they would strike unless they were immediately given the rises demanded by the unions in London. Mr. Scott 'capitulated under duress' to part at least of these demands. This means that he will only give the rise if the 1,ondon proprietors are defeated. If the London proprietors win, he will no longer be 'under duress' and may feel himself entitled to refuse the rises. The other proprietors think that Mr. Scott is trying to have his cake and eat it.
The Daily Worker is no longer a member of the NPA. It resigned many years ago at a time when the NPA required all its members to post a £100,000 bond as a guarantee of abiding by the cartel rules. Later the bond was waived, but the Worker has never returned to the fold. It too might have been expected to enter into the joy of its inheritance and to have profited by the misfortunes of the capitalist press; but though the Daily Worker's first loyalty is to the Kremlin, its compositors' first loyalty is to the other unions engaged in the industry. The compositors refused to work. Since the Worker is produced at a loss, this heroic action will at least save the paper some money.
Negotiations with the NPA are all being handled by Lord Burnham, Deputy Chairman of the NPA and Chairman of the Labour Committee. The chairman, Lord Rothermere, has been away for the last fortnight on the Riviera but came back on Wednesday, thereby doubtless taking a great weight of work off Lord Burnham's shoulders.
The BBC is apt to pride itself on being a public service. There was never a time when its services were so much needed. But during the first four days of the newspaper strike the only addition to its usual news services was the reading out of the football results after the late night news summary on TV. This was presumably for the benefit of the football pool promoters in Liverpool. However, like the Guardian, it still publishes no details of the prices of the winners at race meetings.
Except for assisting the pools promoters the BBC made no alteration in its programmes till Tuesday night, when some journalists were invited to comment on the news in At Home and Abroad after the nine o'clock news. And very well they did it. Starting on Wednesday morning, the BBC extended its news programmes by five minutes.
If the newspaper strike had been a coal or a railway strike, or even a dock strike, the BBC would have told us plenty about it. But there has long been something rather mealy-mouthed about the BBC's attitude to the press; and as the press has long sought to shroud its trade disputes in a mysterious penumbra, the BBC, which has a ludicrous fear of the power of the press, has nearly always collaborated in this task.
Previous page
