Catalogue Number
NMLH.2022.371.23
Object Name
Badge
Title
Lesbians and Gays Support the printworkers / Read the Sun Join the Scum
People
Printworkers Union
Events
Wapping dispute
Description
Badge with black text over a pink inverted triangle on a white background. The words "Read The Sun" are made to match the font of the title/logo of The Sun newspaper, and "join The Scum" in the same format. Around the edge of the badge reads "Lesbians & Gays Support the Print Workers."
The badge was produced in support of printworkers, who had gone on strike in response to the management of Rupert Murdoch's News International refusing to negotiate terms for the movement of the printworks of the newspapers to a new factory in Wapping with worse terms of employment, in 1986. Following the declaration of the strike, known as the Wapping dispute, striking members of staff were fired. Mass pickets and a boycott movement soon followed, but the 54-week strike was ultimately unsuccessful.
Lesbian and Gays Support the Printworkers (LGSP) followed a similar system to LGSM (Lesbians and Gays Support the Miners) though many more members worked within the industry they were vocally supporting. There was significant division within the wider LGBTQIA community, however, due to the homophobic rhetoric of the Fleet Street newspapers being printed by the printworkers.
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