Maxwell profits from Keys' sell-out

Scan page 14

THE SAME week that Pergamon Press was being praised in the pages of Soviet Weekly for having published an English translation of 'Serving The Country: A Communist Cause' by the present chief of the Soviet Defence Ministry, Pergamon boss Robert Maxwell was preoccupied with serving his own profits by breaking strike action by workers at his printing plant in Park Royal, London, and East Kibride, Glasgow.

The dispute began in midMarch,, when workers at the London plant struck in protest at the withholding of back pay. The Scottish workers joined the dispute after Maxwell had attempted to get them to work with printing plates produced by scabs.

Over Easter weekend Maxwell and Bill Keys (General Secretary of SOGAT 82, the main union involved in the dispute) met and agreed between themselves a return to work formula.

Maxwell certainly had every reason to agree to the formula, which included the following points:

*Immediate resumption of work at Park Royal.

*Introduction of a new house agreement at East Kilbride, including acceptance of cuts in the size of the workforce.

*Acceptance of job flexibility and 'reduction of unit costs"' at Park Royal (i.e. cutbacks in the workforce).

*Closure of Park Royal within 60 days of 5 April if no agreement is reached on flexibility and cuts in staffing levels.

*During negotiations on any modernisation of the Park Royal plant, "no restriction will be placed on the production of the Radio Times and the Listener at East Kilbride or, as far as essential, elsewhere within the British Printing and Communications Corporation group of companies.

*All points in the document are legally binding.

But for workers at both the plants in dispute, especially Park Royal, the document represents a defeat. Despite this, Keys not only put his signature to the document, but also committed the National Executive Council of SOGAT to agree to the conditions laid down in the document...

So the NEC voted by to 9 to accept it.

Blacking

Keys had already called off the all-important blacking in the London area of Maxwell's other publications prior to the return to work formula being agreed upon. He now turned his attention to foisting the formula onto the union members themselves.

Union officials recommended acceptance of the formula to the East Kilbride workers on the grounds that it involved withdrawal of the dismissal notices which Maxwell. had issued, retrospective payments for time lost, and no transference of work from Park Royal to East Kilbride without the union's agreement.

Un 17 April a mass meeting of Last Kilbride workers voted to accept the formula. The following Monday, the formula was put betore a mass meeting at Park Royal, but Danny Beagan (SUGAT branch secretary at the East Kilbride plant) doubted that it would be accepted: "We're not too happy about it ourselves, and we can't see it Keys: called off blacking being acceptable to Park Royal. We have given them a guarantee that we won't do any of the work that they normally do. I can imagine there is going to be a lot of heated words at the meeting in London.

Square one

"If they throw it out then we are back to square one again. We have already had full support from East Kilbride Trades Council and Glasgow Trades Council, and if the situation blows up again then we'll appeal to the Trades Councils and the Scottish TUC for support from all over the country.