Fleet St strike plan

Press, 22 October 1984, Page 6

Fleet St strike plan

NZPA-PA London A multimillion-pound plan to unite Fleet Street tabloid proprietors against disruption by the print unions was disclosed yesterday by the “Daily Mirror’s” publisher, Mr Robert Maxwell. Under the scheme, if a newspaper was hit by a strike, the others would not take advantage of the gap in the market. If they did they risked the forfeiture of up to £lO million ($26 million). Mr Maxwell said that he had discussed his “revolutionary” proposal with Rupert Murdoch, proprietor of “The Times”, "The Sun” and “News of the World;” Lord Matthews, publisher of the “Daily Express,” “Sunday Express” and “Daily Star,” and Viscount Rothermere, owner of the “Daily Mail” and “Mail on Sun-

day.” He told Channel 4’s “Face the Press” programme he was proposing that each organisation should put up a bond of £5 million ($13.3 million) to £lO million. If an organisation tried to break the agreement and print copies when a paper was affected by a strike, it would forfeit the money to somebody else. He said that that would stop unions from being able to play off one newspaper management against another, which, if allowed to continue, “in the end will destroy Fleet Street.” Mr Maxwell said that the Fleet Street proprietors organisation, the Newspaper Publishers’ Association, was now “a non-organisation” and had never been united on anything.