Radio Free Press podcast: Wapping, 25 years on exhibition
The latest podcast from Radio Free Press features a tour of the exhibition Wapping 25 years on, currently at the Marx Memorial Library in Clerkenwell, London.
25 years on- News International Dispute, commemorates one of the longest and most bitterly fought industrial disputes in the labour movement history. In January 1986, a 13 month dispute began when Rupert Murdoch and News International, plotted to move production of his papers overnight from Fleet Street, the traditional home of national newspapers, to a new plant at Wapping in East London, sacking 5,500 workers in the process.
This lead to the strike by print unions at Murdoch’s papers, The Sun, News of the World and The Times, and a hundred ‘refusnik’ jounalists, who fought to save thousands of jobs and the rights of the workers. 25 years on, celebrates this struggle and former BBC Political correspondent, Nicholas Jones talks to a number of Wapping veterans for the Radio Free Press podcast, including the exhibition organiser, Ann Field, a former official with the print union SOGAT and a union activist on The Times, John Bailey, a chapel father for the NGA print union at the Sun, and Graham Dodkins, former library worker at The Times and co-author with John Lang of a new book, Bad News The Wapping Dispute.
25 Years On: News International Dispute 1986-87 runs from 1 May-31 May at the Marx Memorial Library, Clerkenwell Green, London EC1.
