majority of five to one to accept the 9%% pay increase offered by the Newspaper Society, although this falls at least C10 short of their claim for £15 a week and follows an unprecedented level of militancy on the part of many chapels.
Motions censoring the NE executive over its conduct of Newspaper Society disputes have dominated the union's past two annual conferences, and this year's is likely to be no exception. While the executive followed conference instructions by ordering mandatory chapel meetings to consider the pay offer, it arranged for these to be held immediately afler Christmas when staffs were depicted and there was no time for discussion.
But the chances are that the deal would still have gone through even without such burcaucratic manoeuvres even if there had been full consideration of the offer, and the dew of the Richard Chavez put to the membership.
LEADERSHIP There are two reasons for this, In the first place, control over the conduct of the three-month dispute, which involved widespread waik-outs and a number of lock-outs, rested in the hands of the NUU's top ofticials. The lay members of the joint standing committee, representing the 9,000 Newspaper Society journalists, met only three times during the dispute, and were unable to establish direct contact with the numerous chapels, As one member of the JSC puts it: Chapels such as Oldham were instrucled to come out for two days and instead stayed out for two weeks, which shows excelient millancy but an abject failure of leadership." In order to be able to respond to and co-ordinate chapel initiatives, it would have heen necessary to linking the chapels to the JSC. The re-ormisa tion of the NU 1, currently under discussion. provides an appropriate opportunity to achieve However, another major drawback was the tact that most of the militancy was dissipated in an effort to get locil bargaining rights restored. While this was eventually achieved, it was "hardly a substantial victory in the context of Phase 3 limits. The collapse of the struggle essentially resulted from the refusal on the part of both the executive and the JSC to pose it as a confrontation with the Government's pay laws.
WORKING CLASS This would have meant seeking links with other sections of workers determined to break through Phase 3 and for journalists this poses a significant problem. Asletters militants have little love for those who attack them through the pages of the bourgents press. They nave no illusons in the notions of "objectivity" and "Impartiality? to which most journalists subscribe. -The cssential task for Journalists Charter, a grouping of socialists within the NUJ, mus therefore be to break journalists from this ideological stranglehold, by adopting an explicit class position and examining the means by which the Press can be made available to workers in struggle.
This week the London Press branch of the electricians" union strongly condemned "despicable and lying' attacks on minen and railway workers officials. Although we do not claim control over editorial rights, neither will we stand for editorial abuse. The time may arise when a repetition of this provocation could result in non-publication." The branch inteads to take this up with the NUT. Journalists must seize this opportunity RICHARD BRINSLEY