The newly catalogued News International Dispute Archive ensures the history of the Wapping dispute – and the solidarity it inspired – is preserved, accessible and alive for future generations, says MATT DUNNE

Forty years on, TONY DUBBINS revisits the Wapping dispute to argue that Murdoch’s real aim was union-busting – enabled by Thatcherite laws, police violence, compliant unions and a complicit media

The once beating heart of British journalism was undone by technological change, union battles and Murdoch’s 1986 Wapping coup – leaving London the only major capital without a press club, says TIM GOPSILL

LAURA DAVISON traces how Murdoch’s mass sackings, political deals and legal loopholes shattered collective bargaining 40 years ago – and how persistent NUJ organising, landmark court victories and new employment rights legislation are finally challenging that legacy

As advertising drains away, newsrooms shrink and local papers disappear, MIKE WAYNE argues that the market model for news is broken – and that public-interest alternatives, rooted in democratic accountability, are more necessary than ever

LOUISA BULL traces how derecognition, outsourcing and digitalisation reshaped the industry, weakened collective bargaining and created today’s precarious media workforce

Unison Scotland’s BRENDA AITCHISON says her union won’t tolerate further cuts to public services 

A handful of journalists at The Times faced a stark personal and political choice in 1986 – cross the picket lines for cash and career, or stand with organised labour at great personal risk. BARRIE CLEMENT recalls why refusing to scab at Wapping was not just an act of union loyalty, but a stand for the future of journalism

Four decades on, the Wapping dispute stands as both a heroic act of resistance and a decisive moment in the long campaign to break trade union power. Lord JOHN HENDY KC looks back on the events of 1986

Enduring myths blame print unions for their own destruction – but TONY BURKE argues that the Wapping dispute was a calculated assault by Murdoch on organised labour, which reshaped Britain’s media landscape and casts a long shadow over trade union rights today