With a Labor Slant

Non-Communist union weeklies have sometimes printed labor news that sounded as if it were right from the party line. They had little choice. The top labor news service, supplying 200 of the nation's 800 labor papers, was the pink-hued Federated Press. But last week a rival agency, with financial backing from several big A.F.L., C.I.O. and independent unions, was well under way in Washington. The new, non-political Labor Press Association had already signed up 193 clients, including such important papers as the C.I.O. News, the Machinist and the I.L.G.W.U.'s Justice.

Organized as a cooperative like the Associated Press, the L.P.A. elected Rubin Levin of the Railway Brotherhoods' weekly Labor as president, and hired Irving Fagan as editor and general manager. Wiry, able Irv Fagan, a 20-year veteran of the newspaper business (the Philadelphia Record), heads a Washington staff of seven, a national staff of 15 part-time correspondents. The L.P.A.'s top byliner: Old Washington Hand Nathan Robertson (PM). Cost of the service: $2 to $15 a week.

Under Senate and House rules, which permitted only correspondents of dailies in the press galleries, the new press association was barred at first. (Federated Press had a place in the galleries because it serviced one daily client--the Communist Daily Worker.) But the Standing Committee of Correspondents has since changed its rules, made the new agency welcome.

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