Picketers jeer as another Murdoch paper comes out

Press, 28 January 1986, Page 26

Picketers jeer as another Murdoch paper comes out

NZPA-AP London The Australian-born publisher, Rupert Murdoch’s, heavily fortified, high-technology plant yesterday produced Britain’s first national dally newspaper editions printed without the main production unions.

“A new sun is rising today,” declared the front-page headline on the first edition of the “Sun” newspaper as Mr Murdoch drove home his determination to print the tabloid and “The Times” of London in spite of a strike by 6000 workers. With the publication of the weeklies the “News of the World” and the “Sunday Times,” Mr Murdoch became the first publisher in London’s newspaper row to produce newspapers using computer technology and without the big unions. The two main production unions control hiring and firing and have for decades preserved antiquated printing methods. Small groups of pickets jeered as Mr Murdoch’s

giant trucks rolled last night from his new plant in Wapping in London’s dockland area. Like the weeklies, the “Sun,” with a circulation of five million, and “The Times” with a circulation of 480,000 were printed by about 100 members of the electricians’ union, the E.E.T.P.U. It is the most Right-wing in Britain and has already pioneered nostrike agreements in electronics industries. It was unclear what proportion of the Monday papers, whose early editions come out on Sunday night, would reach news agents.

The Society of Graphical and Allied Trades (S.O.G.A.T. 82), the biggest distribution and. production union, pledged to step up its bid to disrupt circulation of Murdoch papers, and promised extra effort to distribute rival newspapers.

S.O.G.A.T. 82 and the other big production union, the National Graphical Association, called the strike in a showdown over the intro-

duction of new technology and Mr Murdoch’s plans to cut manning levels.

The head of S.O.G.A.T. 82, Brenda Dean, said the company’s claims of success were “a complete nonsense... in most parts of the country the papers were completely unobtainable. We simply do not believe News International’s claimed production figures.” In a message in the "Sun,” Mr Murdoch said: “We’re on the streets despite the biggest print strike since the war.”

He warned that picketing outside the plant was being tape-recorded and evidence of anyone “misbehaving” would be handed over “to the appropriate authorities.”

In Manchester firemen extinguished a blaze at a plant where a maverick publisher, Eddie Shah, intends producing his first national daily in the spring (northern) using computer technology and the Electricians’ Union.

The police said the fire was caused by arsonists.