A new offer will not remove the barbed wire offer' News International workers before the summer.
dancy payments pay-outs.
The sacked News International workers not be offered their jobs back. The electricians will stay. Murdoch has even refused to guarantee priority to the sacked printers when new vacancies arise. The offer of a 'works committee is not evelt Sunal step of the print but simply a stateWOIN. ment of what already exists. Such a WUlll" mittee would be almost 100 per cent scab electriclans, overseeing the pre no-strike sweetheart deal that they have guaranteed to Murdoch.
It's a scandal that our national leadership have decided to ballot the members at all on such an awful proposal. Rupert Murdoch's latest 'final offer' must be rejected. It's hardly different from his previous 'final which was rejected decisively by the sacked The current offer 'increases' the overall redun£50m to £58m. But the Even though the ceiling on the maximum for every year worked is marginally raised, the £58 million is small in comparison with traditional Fleet Street It seems that after the mass hysteria and rantings that the miners 'should have had ballot' the FOC, Times Clerical SOGAT members are having to suffer with a ballot at every These are ballots of attrition As the months tick by and no new initiatives are taken the hardship Decomes grealer. we mave to win every ballot, Murdoch only needs to win once.
With the capitulation of . our national leaders, • this DIUSDCU looks daunting in the eye of the rank and file. At the time when the rank and file activity and organisaits best the dispute was handed back to the national leadership run at the biennial delegate Since that time we've seen a series cosmetic exercises the form of a 'boycott cam (even though this took six weeks to happen).
But it's not too late to turn this dispute into something it's always been capable of - being won. What's needed is a campalgl IvI d Iegulal Hlass presence at Wapping, the imposition ot a nationa levy amongst SOGAT members. for dustrial action within Fleet Street.
is ultimately the key. In the nine months we've been in dispute we ve secieers Ssacest in hours, the ending of the closed shop, the printing of newspapers under contract and countless other lilallake LICHI We need to link such attacks that have beer made on the Mirror, Express and Observer with our own struggle against But Lne more national leaders sign awa) hard-won rights, the more they undermine the members' confidence in other newspapers.
Just look at the latest deal with the Telegraph. It involves binding arbitration ana a no-dispute Should dustrial action take place the management have the right to lay-off those not involved without pay. Nearly a thousand jobs are to be axed, some will nave real pay cut.
unions affect us all. In otar ve alpad bose seno gis and nu leaders should help to link dispute and forge a united together, we all can win.
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previous offer of the old Times Fleet St building, claimed to be worth over £6 million is withdrawn.