Wapping dispute

Despite the Sun (video)

In January 1986, Rupert Murdoch moved his printing operation, News International, publishers of the Sun and the Sunday Times, from Fleet St to Wapping in East London. Over 5,000 print workers, clerical staff, cleaners and secretaries were sacked in one day.

Printers Playtime

Workers Playtime is a defunct workerist journal that last came out in May 1985, just after the end of the miners' strike. This pamphlet is a collection of Playtime articles. Together, they trace the changing character of the class struggle in the UK printing industry. It ends with a short piece about Wapping, and extracts from the unofficial strike bulletin Picket.

Wapping' 86: a photo essay - Nic Oatridge

A short booklet about the 1986 Wapping dispute at News International, containing a good set of photographs.

Paper Boys - one man's accounts of picketing at Wapping

Police protect the Wapping plant

One man's very personal account of the often violent picketing during the News International strike at Wapping in 1985-6.

Our activity in the late 1980s and 1990s: activity and balance sheet - Antagonism

The Antagonism group reflect on their activities and theoretical development, through involvement in various groups and struggles from the mid-1980s to the end of the 1990s.

Picket: bulletin of the Wapping printers' dispute, 1986-1987

PDFs of all 43 issues of Picket, the unofficial newsletter of the News International printers' dispute of 1986.

The Sun - spoof newspaper from the Wapping strike, 1986

Short spoof issue of The Sun newspaper produced by anarchists to support the News International printers strike at Wapping in 1986.

The Scum - comic about the Wapping dispute, 1986

A contemporary spoof of The Sun newspaper containing a "Tintin" cartoon about the Wapping printers dispute of 1986.

The Wapping printers' dispute, 1986-7 - Sam Lowry

Wapping printers' strike, 1986-87.

A short history of a strike and subsequent lockout by printers in the Wapping area of London, which began in the winter of 1986 and ended just over a year later. The strike marked one of the last major confrontations of the 1980s between workers and employers in the UK.