The Ending of the Strike
BY RANDOLPH S. CHURCHILL MUCH of the credit for the ending of the newspaper strike goes to the TUC. It was the pressure of the printing unions operating through the TUC on the two striking unions which led to a resumption of work. The men have gained nothing that was not available to them the day before the strike started. No concession has been made by the newspaper proprietors. The union leaders may seek to save their faces by underlining the promise'to have negotiations; but there is nothing new in this. Indeed negotiations were still going on between the NPA and some of the printing unions when the engineers and electricians called out their 700 men and caused some 22,000 people to be thro'vn out of work.
The strike has cost the industry at least four million pounds, nearly all of which is irrecoverable. And the full measure of the long-term injuries that have been inflicted is incalculable. It may be, as Lord Rothermere, chairman of the Newspaper Proprietors Association, suggested at a meeting this week, that the industry has seen its greatest days. The proprietors have agreed to have new negotiations with the unions, but it would be wrong to suppose that this involves a moral commitment on their side for further wage concessions. Until the papers have been coming out for two or three weeks, it will be impossible to assess whether or not any extra money will be available. Some of the proprietors fear that they will never again achieve the circulations which obtained before the strike. The pros- perity of the industry largely depended on the householder who bought two or three papers. Having gone without papers for a month, it is feared that many people will now buy only one.
Who will pay for the strike? Not the strikers. They will con- tinue to earn at least the high wages they earned before. Not the proprietors, who have no intention of being impoverished by what has happened. The bill will, of course, be passed on to the public in a very short time.
For it seems to be generally agreed that the mass circulation papers, the Daily Mirror, Daily Express, Daily Mail and News Chronicle, will have to increase their price to twopence. It is anyone's guess to what extent such an increase will further reduce circulations. On top of all this is the probability that the ill-feeling and resentment generated on both sides during the four-week stoppage will fester for many years to come.
On Tuesday night it seemed that all the unions were prepared to return to work at the same rates of pay as were offered by the NPA just before the strike; but when at ten o'clock the NPA met to receive the union leaders, Mr. Briginshaw, secretary of NATSOPA, much the most important union in the in- dustry, failed to appear. He telephoned to say that he wished to meet the NPA on his own. Accordingly he was invited to come at eleven o'clock. He then stipulated that two conditions must be met before NATSOPA would resume work. One con- cerned the pay of women employed on maintenance work. The other was a demand that the men should be paid time and a half for the Easter Monday on which they did not work. The NPA dismissed these claims as frivolous. Mr. Briginshaw also had It complaint that some of his men had been 'interfered with' by the police in Fleet Street. He was told that any such complaint should be addressed to the Snow Hill Police Station or to the Home Secretary. It plainly did not concern the NPA.
During the final negotiations, Mr. Willis of the London Typo- graphical Society insisted on having a separate meeting with the proprietors. He gave as his reason that he did nbt wish to sit around a table at which Communists were present. This action was typical of the robustly anti-Communist line which Mr. Willis has always adopted.
Two weeks ago I stated that the News Chronicle had been losing money. This statement has since been denied by the News Chronicle's chairman, Mr. Laurence Cadbury, who has said that up to the date of the stoppage the News Chronicle was 'making perfectly normal profits.' I welcome this opportunity of expressing my sincere apologies to all concerned. In fact, for 1954 the profits of the Daily News Ltd. (which owns both papers) before providing for taxation amounted to over £450,000, the profits of the News Chronicle and Star being approximately equal. Since 1932 the News Chronicle has made a profit in every year except 1952 when the steep rise in news print prices took place. However, the Daily News Ltd., which is controlled by the Daily News Trustees, has never paid a dividend. All the profits have been ploughed back into the two papers. In earlier years the figures have not always been so satisfactory and it must be remembered that last year was one of exceptional prosperity for the industry. Advertising revenue has never been so high and in spite of rising costs there has been very general prosperity throughout the industry.
These lush times will not, however, last indefinitely. The advent of commercial television is already casting its shadow over Fleet Street since no one can estimate how much advertising revenue will be siphoned off by this new and potent medium. Moreover, the possibility of the ending of newsprint rationing is viewed with disquietude in many newspaper offices.
At the moment the weaker papers in London, and still more in the provinces, are receiving the benefit of what is called 'over-spill advertising'—that is to say advertisements which can find no room in the most financially prosperous newspapers such as The Times, Daily Telegraph, Daily Express, and the Daily Mail. When more pages are available to the giants it is to be feared that there will be less advertising for the weaker papers. It would indeed be a tragedy if these circumstances were to bring about a situation harmful to the prospects of so fine a newspaper as the News Chronicle. It is certainly the sin- cere wish of .everyone in Fleet Street that the News Chronicle will long be able to hold its own in what is one of the most fiercely competitive industries in theland.
It is also denied to the World's Press News that the News Chronicle and the Star are about to be sold. This again is good news as the Cadbury family are among the finest and most public-spirited of the newspaper proprietors.
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