Survival or Chiseling?

The American Newspaper Guild, which represents newsmen all over the U.S., has long contended that it would never force a wage increase that would put a paper out of business. Last week Brooklyn Eagle Publisher Frank D. Schroth was trying to put the Guild's contention to one of its rare tests. Four weeks ago the Guild struck the Eagle, and when mechanical-union employees refused to cross the picket line the paper was forced to suspend publication. The Guild demanded the same $5.80 package wage increase that staffers on Manhattan dailies got in the latest round of wage negotiations.

But the ailing Eagle (circ. 124,817) offered only $2.40, insisted that it should not be classed with Manhattan papers and should not pay the same scale. Said Publisher Schroth last week: "It is financially impossible for the Brooklyn Eagle to meet the [Guild] demands and survive." Guildsmen, who still remember the bitter 14-week Eagle strike 17 years ago, contend that the Eagle has not proved it is unable to pay--i.e., by showing them the books. If the Eagle is not a New York paper, argued the Guild, why does it pay city-scale wages to its mechanical employees in ten other unions? The union offered to arbitrate the wage increase, but the Eagle refused to do so unless the entire contract was opened to review. Said New York Guild Executive Vice President Tom Murphy: "We would not be so foolish as to ask an economic impossibility and put a paper out of business in the process. To accept Schroth's sort of excuse is inviting more and more chiseling."

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