Guild Gain

Fortnight ago the Seattle Newspaper Guild successfully terminated a strike against the nation's biggest publisher when its members went back to work for William Randolph Hearst's Seattle Post-Intelligencer (TIME, Dec. 7). Last week at a quiet round-table conference in Manhattan, the Guild signed a contract with the nation's biggest paper, the New York News-- thus made its greatest gain of the year.

Features of the contract which pleased Guildsmen most were the News's recognition of the Guild as sole collective bargaining agent for editorial help, the establishment of a "preferential'' shop. New editorial employes on the News become Guildsmen after six months' service. The contract also provides a "freedom of the press" clause which recognizes that the "publisher has a constitutional right to speak, write and publish whatever it may deem fit. This right . . . includes the right of the publisher to espouse or support, exclusively or partially, one or more sides or one or more views on any matter for discussion or any subject of controversy." Thus, if the News chooses to side editorially against the strikers of a union to which the Guild is affiliated, presumably the Guildsmen would write the news that way.

In point of fact, such a situation is not likely to occur. Liberal and Democratic Publisher Joseph Medill Patterson espoused and supported Franklin Roosevelt and his New Deal from its inception, kept the five-day week after NRA's death, has chided fellow-publishers for what he regards as shortsightedness in their labor dealings. His paper's new contract with the Guild provides rewrite men and writing reporters a salary of $70 a week, photographers $65, ordinary reporters $50.

Said Publisher Patterson: "If I were a reporter myself as I used to be, I would apply for membership in the Guild." If Publisher Patterson were in fact today a newshawk and a Guildsman, he would know that his union had established no standard newspaper contract, but was making its demands and settlements according to local conditions. Last week in Boston, the Guild signed up for one year with the Herald and Traveler, whose management agreed to minimum salaries of $45 a week to reporters, photographers, artists of five years' experience, vacations of two and three weeks. Typical of newspapers which have not signed with the Guild but are anxious to forestall its activities is the Hearst Washington Times, which announced last week that newsgatherers of three years' experience will receive during the coming year at least $40 for a 40-hour week. Some other papers which recently have agreed to more liberal employment policies: the San Francisco Chronicle, News, Hearst's Call-Bulletin and Oakland Post-Enquirer; the Washington Herald.

--Circulation: 1,600,000 week days; 3,000,000 Sundays.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.