Wapping dispute remembered 25 years on
24 January 2011
WHEN: 7pm, Tuesday, 25 January 2011
WHERE: St Bride’s Institute, Bride Lane, London EC4Y
8EQ
Twenty-five years ago the Wapping dispute was unleashed with the
overnight move of Rupert Murdoch’s newspaper group and the sacking
of over 5,500 workers.
To mark its 25th anniversary, veterans of the Wapping dispute
will join union leaders and political speakers at St Bride’s
Institute, the historic meeting place for newspaper workers, just
off Fleet Street tomorrow (Tuesday, 25 January) to commemorate the
determined resistance of the sacked print workers.
Over 5,500 production and clerical workers were sacked overnight
on 24 January 1986, when Rupert Murdoch’s News International group
moved production of its four national newspapers to a new non-union
printing plant at Wapping in London Docklands. The journalists were
not sacked, but many took a stand on principle and walked out of
their jobs.
The Wapping dispute occurred during a period of unrelenting
attacks on UK workers, unions and communities throughout the 1980s.
Jobs, conditions and union organising were being undermined in
newspapers, along with intensifying concentration of press and
media ownership.
Speakers will include Tony Burke, Unite Assistant General
Secretary, Jeremy Dear, NUJ General Secretary, Jeremy Corbyn MP,
and Megan Dobney, TUC Regional Secretary for the South East region.
They will be joined by veterans of the dispute.
Unite assistant general secretary, Tony Burke, said: “We will be
putting the dispute into context, from the decision of Murdoch to
de-unionise, the implications for industrial relations, the
anti-union laws, the use of the state to try to defeat well
organised workers, the rise of Sky and Fox, the political
ramifications and News Corporations domination of the media
today.
“This will be the first of a number of events, including the
main event of an exhibition and rally on May Day, where we hope to
have the speakers who were at the front line of the dispute
present.”
The meeting has been organised by Unite, the National Union of
Journalists, and the Campaign for Press and Broadcasting
Freedom.
ENDS
For further information contact Tony Burke on 07831 659939 /
Steve Sibbald on 07860 538537 or Ashraf Choudhury in the Unite
press office on 020 7420 8914 or 079820 224761.
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