Twenty-five workers are so get the chop if the multinational publishing firm of Cassell & Collier Macmillan has its way. Eight more redundancies are threatened. The workers-mem bers of the National Union of JournaLists, the print union SOGAT, and the supervisory union ASTMS-have responded by going on strike The scene he becomme incranary cost mon in the media industries today, as the puners afterapt to make the warkers bear Daily Miror over manning loveis ate the most obvious example. Other disputes in this field have taken in concerns as diverse as Landon Broadcasting and Eder Strike cation Audio Visual (where the workers occupation of the promises was officially It was from activists involved in two such struggles- at the Statford Express and Penguin Books that there came the idea for an all-London conference to dis cuss ways of fighting redundancies through claims to reprosent by nationalising the out the printing, publishing and browdcasting industries. Organisation in Lie media is bedevilled by the zumher of dif ferent unions and the craft consciousness this often represents: the conference is seen as a first step to beginning to overcome 'OPEN THE BOOKS To this end the organising conmittee for the conference will be putting forward a resolation outlining ways in which a united respurse can be developed to the employen offensive. Calling for work sharing will no loss of pay in the crot of any fail in the available work, i also states the need to open the books' sa Dat the mockforce can check all plans and accounting for a company's whale field of In the ercot of sackings, the organising committee recommends immediate ovcupation of the premises to prevent the remo val of asets, together with the eloction of this on the slow down in production a strike commuttee and the holding of regu lar mass meetings to lovono the maximum nober of warkent Stress is also laid oo the bood to avoid the isolation of such other workers in the industry and broad Unfoctunately the resolution fights shy of'a key question here-the ideological their control of the editorial content of the media IMG members mn Che industrics wil be poting an amenament co we resoldor recammending blacking by media worken in redundancy struggies. This goes right 1o the heart of the boses Tower andeed, 1 was similar action by printeri at the Daily Mai which precipitated the 1926 Gonera Finally, says the resolution, if the cin ployers still reluse to withdraw the redundancy notices, then the struggle should be extended to demand that the Labour Gor ernment defend the interests of those it company under warkers" control without This initintive is cow which workers in other industria facme redondingies could do well to follow. Instead of simply relying ca the trade union burerucrats wackers ie the media industries ate coming together to work out a programme of independent struggle which can force the barcascents into action. That is the way the attacks of the emplayers can be farced back and the road opened up to a solution of the crisis in the joterests of the working class John Marston frOM ABS, ACTT, ASTMS, NATSOPA NGA, NUS. SLADE and 50GAT-will be hold on Saturday 17 May, starring ar 10.00 am in the London Coffere of Pretting. Eleptunt and Cossle, SEL Detail fron Aidan Plate 1534 4555 day or Carf GardNer (837 9987 darl.
mated Union of Engineering Workers- the union to which most of the occupying members belong. Other union delegations have also joined the picket lines, and visits have beca organised to other factories in the area to win support.
The establishment of a support cont mittee to draw these people together, along with other interested trade unionists and socialists, could extend this vital work of gaining solidarity and popularising the strugule in the area With management claiming that the machinery shifted out will satisty their customers till June, the workers' spukesman Bill Hayward told Red Weekly, Were really up against it nou. This situation can only he reversed by a massive solidarity campaign in the Donations and resclutions of suppor should be seat to Crosfield Joint Shop Stewards Fund, sio Bill Hayward, 34 Dresden Road, London N19 38D