Wapping: The Workers' Story

A film about the momentous year-long industrial dispute which began in 1986, when Rupert Murdoch plotted to move production of his papers overnight from central London's Fleet Street to a secretly equipped and heavily guarded plant at Wapping, a docklands district in east London. 5,500 men and women lost their jobs and centuries of tradition in one of London's last manufacturing industries came to an end. Military-style police tactics, the use of new laws which shackled the unions' hard won freedoms and strike-breaking organised by the electricians union led to a Murdoch victory. The dispute had international ramifications for his expanding press and broadcasting empire in the United States and around the world. It took place as the Thatcher government embraced monetarism - deregulating finance, privatising key industries and undermining local democracy.