Right & Wrong

"Both sides have rejected my report," said Mediator Ted Kheel. "I must have done something right."

He had. His 30-page package of recommendations for settling the three-week-old New York newspaper strike had been turned down by the Newspaper Guild and the New York Times last week merely as a matter of strategy. Had either side said yes, the other side would have surely said no--hopeful that by further bargaining it might gain something beyond Kheel's suggested compromises. Once they had recorded their unwillingness to give way any more, though, both the weary antagonists were quick to accede to Mayor Robert Wagner's suggestion that they change their minds, agree with Kheel, and go back to work. At week's end, all that remained to be done was for the Times's Guildsmen to meet and formally ratify the proposals.

Big Question. Thus, for all practical purposes, the strike ended. But a big question remained: Should it ever have begun? The issues it had settled could easily have been settled at the bargaining table; the looming problems of automation that were the major part of the argument remained largely unanswered. The Guild, which had demanded the same veto over automation machinery that had been won by the International Typographical Union last April, got a promise instead that it would not lose jurisdiction over jobs connected with any new machines. The I.T.U. veto, said Kheel, was "a confession of failure" by the publishers. Then he added vague and hopeful talk of possible solutions to be found by future exploratory committees.

The Guild did not get automatic severance pay for retiring workers as it had asked; it did win the right of joint administration of a Times-Guild pension plan. As for union security, the Guild had demanded a union shop requiring every employee under Guild jurisdiction to become a dues-paying member. Just as adamantly, the Times had said no. Kheel's compromise gave the Guild a union shop in the commercial departments and left editorial personnel freedom of choice.

The whole package--which included 36 items already negotiated, plus the possibility of some new salary minimums and syndication rights for reporters--had few other consolations for the Guild, still fewer for the Times. "We don't like the settlement," said Times Vice President Ivan Veit, "but we'll learn to live with it." Kheel had made it clear that the paper's labor-relations department was in sad disarray; it would have to be revamped before it could deal intelligently with the difficulties ahead. Beyond all that, there was the more immediate problem of making up lost advertising revenue and winning back lost readers. And despite their strike benefits, the Guildsmen would be a long time making up what they lost in three weeks without a paycheck.

Chaotic Pattern. For weeks to come, critics and commentators would be arguing over the effects of the strike, rehashing its history, reaching for explanations, offering advice for the future. Some enterprising Timesman might even search through the paper's file of unprinted columns left over from the disastrous 114-day New York newspaper strike of 1962-63. There he would find the words of Associate Editor James Reston: "One day the New York newspapers will publish again, but they dare not go back to the same chaotic pattern of collective bargaining that produced the present shutdown. The present system is intolerable for the public, the unions and the publishers alike."

How right Scotty Reston was. And how wrong.

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