'A Fight to a Finish'

BRITAIN'S printworkers are militant, and determined to win their biggest battle since the 1926 General Strike. In Watford, Maidstone and Streatham employers' strike-breaking attempts have met with stubborn resistance.

The West Herts. and Watford Observer, which normally sells 85,000 copies, last week produced a 'black' edition of 45,000 copies. The attempts to get the paper out of the works ran into a solid wall of pickets, reinforced by men from Odhams.

Newsagents had their scab papers torn out of their hands, ripped to shreds and scattered over the roadway.

Attempt by the management to get a van loaded with papers out of the main gate failed completely. By Wednesday of this week it was still inside. Pickets rejected the offer of managing director Peacock to call a 'truce' over the weekend; they insisted on staying on duty.

'We could not have agreed to that', Natsopa member Ted Grimes told me. 'What if the bosses had changed their minds over the weekend and forgot to notify us they were going to move the truck?'

Local Labour declares support

To co-ordinate the picketing the strikers in Watford have set up a central strike committee in the local trades hall at Woodford Road.

Harrow Borough Labour Party at its meeting on Tuesday passed a resolution of support for the printworkers and called on all Labour Party members to 'black' any printing products of firms that have not signed the agreement. It also called on its members to help with the picketing.

In Crawley the stoppage is complete. A coloured member of Natsopa picketing Hubners Ltd told me he was convinced that the dispute was a test case for the whole employing class.

Another picket said: 'This dispute must end either in a retreat by the employers or the weakening of trade unionism in the printing industry. I am confident we can win through.'

Outside Metal Box Products in Bermondsey I met a group of young pickets—none of them older than 19.

Sheila, a red-haired youngster, told me: 'I work as a perforator for £4 10s. a week, so you can see why I want the increase. Yes, I support the claim, and I'm in favour of staying out until we get it.'

'Like the bus strike'

Her boy friend Peter, who is 19 and works at Metal Box as an assistant machine-minder, said: 'I get about £6 6s. a week after stoppages. When I have paid my fares, about 3s. or 4s. a day, and coughed up my keep at home there isn't much money left.

'To get any extras you have to work overtime. What's the good of that?'

He too was prepared to stick it out as long as need be: 'If we win then it will be easier for other workers to get the 40-hour week. If we lose then it will be harder for them. That's why this strike is like the bus strike.'

Peter and some of his mates had been out on Friday's demonstration at TV House.

'Oh yes, they turned the water hose on us', he said. 'But we gave as good as we took, and quite a few coppers' helmets rolled.'

Attempts by the Press to stir up antagonism between Covent Garden porters and printworkers on strike have flopped.

On Monday hundreds of men demonstrated outside Odhams in Long Acre. Soon the road was a mass of scuffling men and police. Despite extreme provocation the men carried on with the intended march.

Covent Garden porters' pledge

The Press claimed that the incident was sparked off when demonstrators clashed with a Covent Garden porter. Next day porters in the Garden pledged themselves to raise £100 for the printers' strike fund.

Pickets at Empire Ink in the East End—suppliers of ink to national newspapers—told me: 'We're answering the bosses in the most effective way—a strike. By the week-end the national Press will be brought to a standstill. They started the fight. We will finish it.'

In Leeds the local branch of the Socialist Labour League is producing a regular duplicated bulletin written by a group of socialist printworkers.