Back to Print in Baltimore

The strike against the Baltimore Sun papers had promised to drag on in definitely; in five weeks, negotiations between management and the American Newspaper Guild had made no noticeable progress. Then, suddenly, the strike was all but over. Not a single Guildsman was back at work last week, but the Sun still managed to publish morning and evening papers. "Things from our point of view are very bright," said Promotion Director Rob ert Kavanaugh. "We have a sufficient complement to put out the papers as our people know them."

The people who brightened the pic ture for management were the printers, who were back on the job after stern orders from International Typograph ical Union President Elmer Brown.

ITU members, said Brown, were violating their contract with the Sun by refusing to cross the picket line. "The Newspaper Guild," he complained in a telegram to his Baltimore local, "has taken an uncompromising position in its negotiations with management," a surprising comment from the boss of a union whose New York local had pre cipitated a 114-day New York news paper strike two years ago that helped kill one paper. "Members of Baltimore Typographical Union," Brown went on to say, "owe their first loyalty to the ITU. Any member returning to work under the current contract would be upholding unionism to a far greater degree than by violating ITU policy and laws in supporting another organization which could not itself have stopped publication."

Brown followed up his telegram by demanding that the printers turn in their "travel cards," which permit them to take jobs outside the city when on strike. Those who refused to do so, he implied, would lose their seniority. To date, about 100 out of 380 printers in the Sun unit have drifted back to work.

Members of other craft unions have also crossed the picket line despite the howls of massed strikers (several people were arrested in disorderly scuffles last week). The Teamsters are still staying away, but they are of little help to the Guild: the Sun has 100 in dependent carriers on hand to distribute newspapers.

To make matters still brighter for management, 38 editorial staffers who are not Guild members have continued to work during the strike. Neither the paper's 12-man Washington bureau nor any of the foreign bureaus are covered by the Guild contract. "They're going to break the strike," said a Federal observer last week. "If they get back in publication, they'll kill the Guild. You can replace a Guild member, but you can't replace the craft unions."

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