It has been a long, hot, painful summer for the Hon David Astor, the Editor, and the 1,200 employees at The Observer. In mid-June, Britain's oldest Sunday paper was facing bankruptcy. To avoid closure, a one-third cut in the wages bill was needed. The seven unions involved were asked to provide lists of volunteers for redundancy payments within five weeks. Failing this, some 400 people would be sacked.
The proposals, said union leaders, were an attack on printing workers under the guise of the paper's economic difficulties. If the powerful print unions - often accused of overmanning - agreed to produce the paper with many fewer men, this would create a precedent for other national papers-many of which are now facing the same economic difficulties as The Observer was.
A BBC film crew followed the negotiations, and recorded the views of the Editor, journalists and leaders of NATSOPA, one of the main print unions.
Written and produced by ELWYN PARRY-JONES