Strike in New York (Contd.)

The Manhattan newspaper strike was something new in the history of U.S. journalism. Never had newspaper unions lined up so solidly for a showdown fight, and never had metropolitan newspapers been so united to meet them. When the strike of 400 photoengravers first started and 20,000 other newspaper employees* refused to cross their picket lines (TIME, Dec. 7), both sides expected the dispute to end quickly. They were wrong. The strike dragged on for eleven days as New Yorkers tried all manner of stunts to get news without newspapers (see below). Not until this week did it look as if the six striking New York dailies (combined circ. 5,500,000) and representatives of the Photo-Engravers' Union would reach a settlement.

Early in the strike, the Photo-Engravers' Union, which has a minimum scale of $120 to $131 weekly, had cut its demand for a $15-a-week raise to $7.50, v. the $3.75 offered by the publishers. But even though the union's international president wanted to arbitrate the difference, the New York City local's President Denis Burke led the membership in a thumping 287-47 vote against arbitration. The other unions, committed to full cooperation, went along with the engravers' decision.

There was much more than an engravers' wage boost at stake. Both the publishers and the unions fully realized that any agreement with the Photo-Engravers' Union would set the pace for negotiations with all eight other newspaper unions. (The publishers estimated that an across-the-board increase would cost them $1,000,000 a year for every $1 in pay boosts.) "New York publishers have made their decision," commented the Louisville Courier-Journal. "They are refusing to tie themselves to blanket cost expansion ..."

Ghost Papers. A key paper in the publishers' united front was the Herald Tribune, which was not directly involved in the strike, since its engraving is done outside its plant. Nevertheless, Trib President Mrs. Helen Rogers Reid brought out one issue of an eight-page paper, then announced that she was suspending publication "until further notice." (She then left on a trip to Paris.) The Trib suspended because the Times made it clear that if the Trib continued to publish, the Times might settle independently with the union, thus probably forcing the others to settle also. Since the Trib could ill afford a settlement at the engravers' terms, it gave in. Thus the Trib took the biggest loss of all from the strike, since it kept on its full 2,000-man staff at regular pay. The staffers spent their time putting out a complete newspaper, including ads, and 50 to 100 copies were printed for Trib files. After five days of this, the Trib decided that the financial strain was too great, and resumed publication. But the paper again was only an eight-page one that carried no ads. The Trib (circ. 353,411) figured that by selling about 2,000,000 copies, it might break even on current expenses from circulation receipts alone.

Another casualty was S. I. Newhouse's Long Island Star-Journal, which got ready to take full-page paid ads of comics and features from struck papers. But when the paper's stereotypers refused to cast the "struck work," the paper "regretfully" announced that, "under the circumstances," it would not publish the paper at all.

At the Times, where about 200 of the 600 editorial staffers crossed the picket lines from the start (including such byline newsmen as Meyer Berger, James A. Hagerty, Brooks Atkinson, Olin Downes. William Conklin, Harry Schwarz, Russell Porter, William L. Laurence, Hanson Baldwin), the staffers worked on a ghost paper. They put together a two-to eight-page paper (but did not print it) so that, if the strike ended suddenly, they could give readers back-copies. Offices of the News, Mirror, Post, World-Telegram and Sun and Journal-American were virtually deserted, with only a few key executives and non-strikers on hand.

Papers outside Manhattan, such as the Brooklyn Eagle and Newark Evening News, did their part to protect the publishers' united front. They refused to ship in extra copies of their papers, and turned down the bumper crop of ads offered them. Explained the Brooklyn Eagle: "We do not wish to be a beneficiary of the troubles of the Manhattan papers." Other out-of-town papers, e.g., the Washington Post, Baltimore Sun, Philadelphia Inquirer, also turned down requests from New York newsdealers for thousands of extra copies. Said the New York Publishers' Association: "It is an unwritten law that such things are not done."

Assistance Pay. The struck dailies were taking ad losses that they may never recoup, since most of the losses were in Christmas-season ads. The News alone was reported to be losing an estimated $1,400,000 a week in ad and circulation revenue, the Times about $100,000 a day in ads alone. The publishers sent letters to employees, explaining sternly that "there will be no pay for those for whom there is no work . . . The limited number of employees needed will be notified individually regarding their assignments." In practice, that meant, in most cases, only those who had been crossing the picket lines from the first day of the strike.

Striking employees were beginning to feel the squeeze. The New York Newspaper Guild (membership: 7,800) assessed all its members working on magazines and other publications 5% of their salary per week to set up "special assistance" for strikers ($30 a week, plus $10 for each dependent). But the unions' united front had weak links, just as the publishers' did. Many a Guildsman or mechanical-union member grumbled that he should have been allowed to vote on whether or not to support the engravers' strike, rather than being confronted with a picket line when he showed up for work. Other union men had begun to look for jobs in department stores, nonstruck printing plants and elsewhere, to tide them over.

* Members of eight unions: Newspaper Guild of New York, International Typographical Union, International Printing Pressmen, Stereotypers and Electrotypers. International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers. International Mailers Union, International Association of Machinists, Paper Handlers & Straighteners.

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