After a period of growing tension between print unions and management at Rupert Murdoch’s News International 6,000 workers went on strike in 1986. Management had wanted no-strike clauses and flexible working conditions that were unacceptable to the unions. Murdoch had secretly equipped a new plant at Wapping to print his titles (The Sun, The News of the World, The Times and The Sunday Times). Murdoch served dismissal notices on the printers and staffed the new plant from the electricians’ EETPU union.

Over the next year campaigners and trade unionists picketed and protested at and around the Wapping plant. Anti-trade union laws meant that only six pickets could stand directly at the gate on Virginia Street, but mass pickets frequently attempted to block the narrow streets around the plant to prevent delivery trucks driving through. Murdoch had taken extensive measures to defeat the unions. He contracted distribution to non-union haulage company TNT, so that the railways with strong unions could be avoided. The plant became known as “Fortress Wapping” with heavy security and a huge and constant police presence, with at least 130 police on duty at a time. On some nights there were up to 1,800 police. Abuse of local people and pickets by police was frequently experienced with intense violence exploding on January 24th, 1987. Protesters and journalists were attacked and injured. Over the year of the dispute 1,000 arrests were made.

Despite the determination of print workers and campaigners, the dispute ended in February 1987. The defeat was a major blow for print workers and the trade union movement in Britain.