The Closed Shop Issue

Abstract

Of the many matters to which journalists have had to devote their attention, none has aroused the ferocity and tension of the closed shop in journalism, particularly during the 1970s. It occupied many hours of debate inside and outside Parliament and provided columns of published letters to the editor; it resulted in the two longest-running strikes in the history of British journalism, as well as many smaller but no less unpleasant incidents: it set colleague against colleague and saw the use of unbecoming and unprofessional tactics in blatant attempts at coercion.