Revolt of the Scabs

When the American Newspaper Guild called a strike at the Los Angeles Herald-Examiner back in 1967, the Hearst Corp. paper hired some 1,000 nonunion workers to replace the strikers. Negotiations between the Herald and the ten press unions affected by the strike have stumbled on for nearly eight years, but the afternoon daily has been coming out regularly with the aid of the nonunion "scabs," and readers have mostly forgotten about the walkout.

Less Pay. Now the scabs themselves are in revolt. The problem is that Hearst continues to pay staff members even less than smaller local papers do, an issue that drove the Guild to strike in the first place. Thus a reporter who earns $229 a week on the Her aid-Examiner (circ. 419,000) could make $298 a week on the nearby Long Beach Independent and Press-Telegram (combined circ. 151,000). The strikebreakers are not permitted to join the Guild as long as the original strike continues, so this year they petitioned the National Labor Relations Board to have their own group, Employees for Better Working Conditions, designated as the paper's sole bargaining unit. An NLRB election last month was Abruptly canceled when the Guild withdrew from the running. Says Guild Spokesman Dick Pattison: "It didn't make much sense for us to be on the ballot when the only ones voting would be the strikebreakers."

The Guild's withdrawal is being interpreted by NLRB negotiators as a formal end of the 90-month strike, and the agency now recognizes the new group as the Herald's official union. Except, that is, for a couple of further complications. Herald executives, mindful of the paper's 42% drop in circulation since the original strike began and reluctant to face another walkout, are appealing the NLRB decision. Though most of the 1967 strikers have long since found other jobs, the Guild is still holding out for a settlement. But the scabs' union hopes to negotiate without a walkout. Because, says a union spokesman, "we don't have enough money for a strike."

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