SIXTY-five journalists are still in occupation at Futura Books in Hackney, East London — three months after the dispute began.
As we go to press, management is trying to negotiate a settlement, the first such talks since 19 January.
Annabel McLaren, the NUJ mother of the chapel, hopes that the occupiers win their demand for full reinstatement of two jobs and the creation of a third. But the employers are likely to stick on the question of back pay.
Futura is owned by the British Printing Corporation, the largest publishing firm in West Europe, the board of which has recently come under the control of millionaire publisher Robert Maxwell.
With a massive crisis in the print industry, Maxwell wants to introduce a 'survival plan'. As Annabel McLaren says: 'BPC wants to get rid of jobs, and the present occupation has put us in a strong position to fight future redundancies.
'If we'd been working normally, we would probably be deciding to go on strike — with a threat of closure hanging over our heads. Now we hope to be in a position to have a say in what happens.'
The National Union of Journalists, particularly the magazine and book branches, are giving practical support to the occupation. The Transport Union is also officially supporting it and will be halting the movement of goods.
Local teachers associations have agreed not to buy educational material from the company. But the print unions, while 'sympathising', have not given their official backing.
As BPC faces massive restructuring and redundancies, the print unions leaders are selling jobs hand over fist. All printing agreements have been torn up as the unions negotiate to sell jobs.
So a victory now in BPC might go some way to stem the tide of redundancies that is sweeping the company and the print industry in general.