Time running out for ‘Times’

Press, 6 November 1978, Page 9

Time running out for ‘Times’

NZPA staff comes. London Time is running out for two of Britain’s most respected newspapers, “The Times,” and the “Sunday Times.” It now’ seems highly likely that the threat of a voluntary indefinite suspension of publication of the two papers will go ahead on the deadline. of November 30. The deadline was set six' months ago by Times News-; papers, Ltd. management in a bid to end a two-year running battle of unofficial disputes with the powerful Fleet Street print unions. Senior executives have said there is still time in the next four weeks for the unions to sign sweeping new agreements including what; one commentator called “the Holy Grail of Fleet Street”— an enforceable guarantee of continuous production — and have vowed there will be no extension of the deadline. But “Times” chapel officials of the unions involved have said there is insufficient time for them to consider the far-

reaching agreements the company wants them to sign. Commentators now seem certain that the company will carry out its threat to stop pubficaton of the two papers from the deadline. But no-one is guessing how i long the suspension could go! on. ' > At least two unions have said they will not negotiate once the papers close their j doors, and have threatened to 1 disrupt other printing opera- ' itions carried out by Times (Newspapers’ company, the! Thomson Organisation. The decision by the news - - : papers’ management to make a stand springs from an almost constant round of disruptions and disputes during ' the last two years. The two ! papers have lost millions of i copies between them, and figures for the first quarter i show they lost more than any ■ other national newspaper. > ; During the same period, 80 i ' per cent of the time of senior 1 executives was devoted to at- • > tempting to solve unofficial industrial disputes. i The package drawn up by ! the company is being i watched with intense interest ■ by the rest of Fleet Street,

with its notoriously intransi-i gent industrial relations. The company is offering' higher pay and sick pay, better pensions, longer holidays! and possibly shorter hours.; In return it wants agreement! | on a five-point package! centred on a continuous production guarantee (to stop; the loss of copies through! wildcat disputes), wage re-1 structuring, and changes in traditional job delineation' based on new printing tech-1 nology, efficient manning to 'cut out the practice of “ghosting” — payment for non-existent workers whose employment is guaranteed by manning agreements, and ai new streamlined disputes; procedure. Tlie unions have claimed! that “The Tinies” manage-; merit is going too far, too! fast. But Times Newspapers’] chief executive, Mr “Duke” (Hussey told the “Guardian”: ]“We are trying to stop (people using unofficial acItion as a bludgeon to wreck these newspapers.” The group’s New Zealandborn general manager, Mr Dugal Nisbet-Smith, told the . “Financial Times” — not a part of “The Times” group

j— this week that the. papers, along with 11.6 mil-]: ; I lion copies, had lost an esti- | mated S4.BM in pre-tax pro-] j fits through unofficial dis- ] Iruptions this year alone. I Commentators said “The] i Times,” unlike the mass-] circulation “popular” papers, I could return relatively uniscathed from a protracted | closing because of its stable, (almost institutionalised read- ' ership of some 300,000 (copies daily. The “Sunday Times” is] considered more vulnerable. But it equals the combined 1.4 million total of its two rivals in the quality Sunday ! market — “The Observer” land the “Sunday Telegraph”; — and is thought likely toj . I also be able to stand an ab-l ■ jsence of perhaps up to two] ■ [months. 'I The group has said it will] '[not sell its titles regardless; :jof the outcome. > It. says it is willing to go! • lon negotiating while the] ijpapers are suspended and; has predicted the new agree- - ments will be signed by the r first few days of December. s But if this prediction does 1 not come about, the situ--3 ation may find itself in a

bitter and intractable staleImate. ! Mr Owen O’Brien, gen- ; era! secretary of Natsopa I (the print union which repj resents nearly half the (group’s 4300 work-force) and lone of the first union leaders to offer to talk with! “The Times” management, j told the “Guardian” is seeking a confrontation, and I now it seems it may be] hoist with its own petard.] They are under pressure to! 'bring some kind of ratio-; nalisation to the situation,! and I do not blame them. ■ But you have to negotiate it, I you do not get it at the| point of a gun. j “I cannot see us negotiat-i ing after a lock-out, and 1; (jcannot, see us printing the; '[provincial newspapers (for; the Thomson group) in al ,[lock-out. If they lock out] Jour people in London, we', [will pull out our people ini jthe provinces . . . the more: bthey keep this threat on . . . 1 the more unrest there will' ‘ be in the end. “And at the end of the; 3 day after al) the bloodshed,; . they will still have to get a' ilsettlement round the table.”