Sympathy strike cuts Murdoch print run

Press, 11 February 1986, Page 10

Sympathy strike cuts Murdoch print run

NZPA-AP London Rupert Murdoch’s bigselling weekly, “News of the World,” was 1 million copies short yesterday after north England printers struck in sympathy with 5000 sacked London colleagues. About 2000 printers and other production workers employed by Express Newspapers refused for the third successive week to handle the giant rolls of newsprint for the “News of the World” in spite of Murdoch law suits which might bankrupt their union. So-called "sympathy strikes” are banned by laws enacted under the Conservative Government.

The Express plant in Manchester, northern

England, is contracted to print 2 million northern editions, of “News of the World,” which has a circulation of 5 million. Mr Murdoch’s company increased its print run by 1 million at plants in London, and Glasgow, but still produced only 4 million copies of the paper. News International said it managed a full print run of its “Sunday Times” for the first time since January 25, when it started high-technology printing at a new plant at Wapping, manned by electricians.

The unprecedented switch to the plant at the East End of London bypassed the two main production unions in Fleet

Street. Mr Murdoch sacked the strikers whose unions, the National Graphical Association and the Society of Graphical and Allied Trades, have for decades preserved antiquated metal printing methods in Fleet Street. Twenty-nine people were arrested outside the Wapping plant in scuffles between the police and pickets who were backed by about 1000 demonstrators, the police said.

The trouble . flared when the police brought in reinforcements and demonstrators tried to block delivery trucks coming from the plant. The drivers have angered printers by ignoring union orders to back the strike.