I arrived at Mirror Group for an interview to be a systems analyst. I was told unofficially that if you don’t the trade union NATSOPA, you will not have a job. I said it was no problem for me join and they heaved a sigh of relief.
I soon learned NATSOPA was one of a number of unions little known to the outside world, and where the strict separation lines between them lay, few knew - SOGAT, SLADE – not Noddy Holder’s union –, and of course the top daddy, NGA, the compositors union. Maybe there were others.
The union played very little role in our lives –just one or two meetings a year, in work time. One of these wajoin s the visit of some paid union officer who would ask ‘brothers, what is your aspiration for pay in the coming year?’. We would work out some number that he felt should have been higher and he would trot off to negotiate something which we always accepted.
While I was working for the Mirror Group on Fetter Lane, just up from the pub universally known as The Stab in the Back on account of people
sacked or made redundant going there to drown their sorrows, I saw some construction work starting to take place on the first floor flat roof of the main Mirror building opposite, facing onto Ludgate Circus. As the area being developed was roughly circular, I jokingly said to colleagues that it looked like a revolving restaurant was being built for directors. Within 24 hours, there was apparently a threat by one of the unions to call a strike over the ‘issue’. I found this immensely funny.
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After a few years, Mirror Group decided to move our unit to the delights of Hayward's Heath. We were living in Hertfordshire, and while Hayward's Heath looked pleasant enough, neither my wife nor I had any interest in moving there. At this time, the union officer popped up to negotiate some minor increase in the already-generous redundancy being offered. We took it, and at the end of our employment, we got a letter from the union suggesting we applied for ‘honourable discharge’ from the union. This was a strange concept to me, and as my next job was with a merchant bank, I made the supreme sacrifice not to bother applying. I don’t think it has affected my life. Happy days.
National Graphical Association was formed in 1964By the merger of two rival typographers unions, and was then joined by a number of smaller unions, including SLADEIt had 136,000 members in 1982. The NGA merged with the Society of Graphical and Allied Trades in 1991 to form the Graphical, Paper and Media Union.
National Society of Operative Printers and Assistants (NATSOPA) founded 1889. It had 54,000 members in 1946. It amalgamated with SOGAT in 1982
The Society of Graphical and Allied Trades (SOGAT) was formed in 1966 by the National Union of Printing, Bookbinding and Paper Workers and the National Society of Operative Printers and Assistants (NATSOPA). It had 205,000 members in 1980. A successor organisation, SOGAT '82 merged with the National Graphical Association to form the Graphical, Paper and Media Union,which in turn, after a number of mergers, became part of Unite.
For further reading please refer to https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wapping_dispute
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