Nothing to Brag About

"STRUCK--NOT STRUCK OUT." boasted the New York Daily News in a Page One headline. But there was little enough to brag about. Despite a walkout of 1,123 Newspaper Guild members, the News struggled into print with one skimpy 16-page issue--run off on Hearst's Journal-American presses. Then the News suspended publication, the first and so far the only strike-bound Manhattan daily in what had originally looked like a management-labor showdown.

By week's end the Guild, whose contracts with Manhattan's seven dailies expired on Halloween, had struck only the News. This was clearly a backdown from the Guild's pre-strike threat of "no contract, no work." It was a strong indication, as well, that the strike was not likely to spread. In fact, although the Publishers Association of New York was publicly pledging solidarity, privately its leaders were putting pressure on the News to come to terms. Among Guild demands that the News has stubbornly refused to meet is one that the other six New York papers have long accepted: dues checkoff, or automatic payroll deduction of Guild membership dues. Fact was that neither side really wanted, and few of Manhattan's papers could afford, another strike like the one in 1958 that silenced the city's dailies for 19 days--and cost everyone involved a total of $50 million.

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