Business Notes LABOR

"Don't stop to talk to anyone who approaches you. Don't make eye contact with passersby. Try not to look lost, even if you are." What kind of place needs to give its visitors such ominous advice? The surprising source is the New York Daily News, which bills itself as New York's Hometown Paper. The News has spent the past year preparing for the possibility of a multiunion strike by seeking "replacement workers" from around the U.S. To orient its out-of-town talent to life in the wilds of Manhattan, the News is preparing a guidebook that portrays a vision of the city dramatically at odds with the paper's public boosterism.

Perhaps anticipating hostility toward the imported help, the guide warns, "Don't frequent restaurants in close proximity to the office" or "hangouts traditionally populated by journalists." News spokesman John Sloan, who says the guide was purloined from company computers, defends the advice as "general safety tips that you would use in any big city, and nothing more than that."