Drivers defy newspaper picket

Press, 31 January 1986, Page 7

Drivers defy newspaper picket

NZPA-PA London Newspapers were being distributed from Rupert Murdoch’s News International plant yesterday after lorry drivers apparently ignored a union instruction not to cross striking printers’ picket lines. Late on Wednesday night lorries were still going in and out of the Wapping plant in East London where the “Sun” and “The Times” were being printed.

The leader of the Transport Union, Mr Ron Todd, on Wednesday ordered his 1,600,000 members, including the men who drive the newspaper lorries, not to cross picket lines at the plant. The company immediately countered by obtaining a High Court injunction ordering the union to withdraw its instruction. If the union defies the Court it could face heavy fines and sequestration of

its assets. On Wednesday night, police outside the heavily fortified Wapping plant restricted the number of pickets at the main gate to six. A group of about 200 people shouted abuse at the lorries, as they have done for several nights. Among those visiting the scene was a Labour member of Parliament, Mr Dennis Skinner. He said he believed the courts would be used “to beat down the workers.” News International on Wednesday night issued a writ seeking injunctions and damages against the strikers’ unions, the Society of Graphical and Allied Trades ’B2 and the National Graphical Association, over alleged unlawful mass picketing at Wapping. The writ requires that the pickets cease to “step, restrain or persistently follow” drivers from the

T.N.T. (U.K.), Ltd, freight firm who are distributing the News International newspapers.

Trades Union Congress leaders yesterday were to launch an inquiry that could lead to the suspension of the rebel electricians’ union, but the union will not be represented. The E.E.T.P.U. leader, Mr Eric Hammond, has said that he will not attend the hearing where four newspaper unions were to lay complaints and evidence of alleged collusion between his union and the News International management.

Mr Hammond’s members are manning the presses at Wapping doing work normally done by members of the traditional print unions Sogat ’B2 and the N.G.A. Mr Hammond has told the T.U.C. general secretary, Mr Norman Willis, that he needed more time

to prepare his case against the complaints. The Labour Opposition leader, Mr Neil Kinnock, was caught up in a row with Parliamentary lobby journalists yesterday over his party’s boycott of News International journalists.

The lobby has withdrawn its invitation to Mr Kinnock to address its members at Westminster while the ban continues. This follows an instruction from Labour’s ruling national executive telling party members and members of Parliament to boycott journalists working for "The Times,” the “Sun,” the “Sunday Times” and the “News of the World” because they are working at Mr Murdoch’s Wapping plant in defiance of a National Union of Journalists instruction. Mr Kinnock wrote to the lobby chairman, Mr

Chris Moncrieff, of the Press Association, saying that he would "not accept questions or other approaches from journalists employed by News International, nor will I offer them information of any description.”

Mr Moncrieff consequently withdrew the Labour leader’s invitation to the regular Thursday meetings.

He told Mr Kinnock that the lobby "cannot allow conditions to be imposed on us at lobby meetings.” Labour party staff already have turned away reporters from the "Sun” and “The Times” who wanted to attend a briefing at the party’s headquarters in London. Alliance leaders, Dr David Owen and Mr David Steel, accused the Labour Party of interfering with the freedom of the press.