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How the strike was provoked
JOHN LANG recalls how Murdoch used scabbing electricians and even devised a fake newspaper to force a confrontation with printers – then sacked them all

WAS 28 years of age when the Wapping dispute started. Even now as I fast approach my sixtieth year, it can still stir a great range of emotions within me.

I was a librarian at Times Newspapers Limited (TNL), publishers of the Times and the Sunday Times, and was a member of the clerical chapel committee (a shop steward).

Rupert Murdoch’s News International had purchased TNL in early 1981, adding them to his other national newspaper titles the Sun and the News of the World which he obtained in 1969.

  • John Lang is one of the authors of Bad News, a chapel rep (deputy FoC) of the Times Newspapers Clerical Chapel during the dispute and chair now of the News International Dispute Archive.
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