Hearts & Minds: History offers scant hope to striking scribes

Journalists at The Guardian and Observer have voted to strike over the planned sale of The Observer to Tortoise Media. The 48-hour walkout will take place on Wednesday and Thursday, 4 and 5 December, with a second 48-hour stoppage due the following week. Why 48 hours and not 24? Because that will maximise disruption and is likely to badly affect The Guardian’s print production.

Feelings are running high within Guardian Media Group, which owns both titles. The journalists, fearing job losses should the deal go-ahead and angry at what they see as the offloading of The Observer to a buyer who may lack the resources of potential other bidders, have not taken the step lightly. It nevertheless crosses a line. Theirs is a company that is not in strong shape. GMG lost £36.5m last year and print sales are fading. Industrial action will only add petrol to the fire.

Journalists and strikes tend not to end happily. The two best-known in history, the New York City newspaper strike in 1962-63 and the Wapping dispute in 1986, both ended in failure. Tellingly, each saw readers switch to other papers and the launch of alternative outlets. In New York, the strike sparked the creation of The New York Review of Books, New York Daily Report, New York Metropolitan Daily and New York Standard, while The Brooklyn Eagle saw its circulation soar. At the same time, all-news radio began in New York with WABC-FM. Wapping similarly heralded the advent of The Independent.

Nothing like that will occur today – those strikes were lengthy, not 48 hours, and such is the decline in print that no one will produce a rival newspaper. But Guardian readers can choose to switch to existing titles and online platforms. There is bound to be some fallout. For a paper that has always championed the workers and held bosses to account, navigating a strike presents a philosophical as well as an operational headache.

Chris Blackhurst is one of the UK’s foremost business journalists. He was previously Editor of The Independent and City Editor of the Evening Standard.