09.04.1998

Management unrepentant

On April 7 the first Morning Star proper after the strike carried the full statement of recommendations of the “appellate body on the dismissal of John Haylett” alongside the points of view of both the strikers and management. Both sides describe the dispute in terms of a meaningless industrial conflict devoid of any comprehensible cause.

Neither connects the dispute to the struggle in the CPB, and the CPB itself does not avail itself of the opportunity of the reappearance of what is, to all intents and purposes, its own paper, to explain its position. A report of the CPB political committee’s deliberations appears on page 7, welcoming “communist advances in the Ukraine,” calling for “extensive support” for the April 18 meeting of the Liaison Committee for the Defence of Trade Unions, but keeping mum on the matter of greatest importance to itself.

Perhaps this is what John Haylett meant when he called for a “return to normality”. What are we to make of his declaration in the editorial that “The Morning Star will continue to put forward its clear and distinctive political line, while providing a forum for different points of view within the labour movement”? Fine words, but the CPB even conceals its own point of view!

Under the headline, ‘Practising what we have preached,’ Chris Kasrils, deputy father of the NUJ chapel, justifies the strike. He argues, quite rightly, that “Morning Star journalists would not have been taken seriously by the rest of the movement if they had failed to react against what we saw as a fit-up against John Haylett. When we write of workers’ rights and trade union or political principles in future, the movement will know that we practice what we preach.”

Only by implication does he hint that there must have been more to it. “Management gave every impression of having made its mind up from the start that it wanted John sacked. All that it lacked was any credible charge to lay against him.” Yet political journalism, Chris, requires that we uncover the political causes behind things.

Mary Rosser, unrepentant, declares that management “did not agree with the recommendations of the appellate body, but accepts them” in order to meet the “deepest desire” of the Star readership to “get the paper back on the road.” She also casts aspersions on the fairness of the appeal hearing. Alf Parrish was appointed chairperson of the appeal tribunal on the recommendation of media union GPMU, which not only has members employed at the Star who were campaigning against the strike, but is the power base of Mary’s husband, ousted CPB general secretary Mike Hicks. It is with dismay, therefore, that she complains how management “did not realise” that Parrish “is a member of the board of Tribune, a paper with a record of hostility to the Morning Star management.” I recall that paranoia was one of the complaints which led to the downfall of Hicks and Rosser in the CPB executive.

Ian Farrell