Dismissal, Strike, Dismissal

Since its first national convention in St. Paul last summer the American Newspaper Guild has made friends here, enemies there. It got the Associated Press to adopt a five-day week, failed to win general pay rises from the Cleveland News. It won concessions on hours, wages and job-security from Scripps-Howard's New York World-Telegram, failed to get a written contract. It won a pipsqueak boycott against the Jamaica Long Island Press, suffered sharp internal pains because some Guild elements objected to the "labor union tendencies" of President Heywood Broun.

But all such happenings seemed like shadow-boxing compared to the brawls in which the Guild found itself last week in Newark, Washington and Oakland, Calif.

In Newark is a tabloid newspaper called the Ledger, published by a brawny, hot-tempered Westerner named Lucius T. Russell Sr. Setting himself up in Newark some 15 years ago, Publisher Russell attracted instant attention with a local vice crusade, splashed pictures of Newark brothels with names of the property owners daily on the Ledger's front.page. His crack rewrite man was Hubert Renfro Knickerbocker, later to win the Pulitzer Prize for his European correspondence for the old New York Evening Post (TIME, May 11, 1931).

The Newark Newspaper Guild tried to engage in collective bargaining. An importunate Guild committeeman, after thrice vainly requesting an interview with him, mentioned section 7 (a) and the Regional Labor Board in a letter. Fortnight ago Publisher Russell answered by posting a notice on the Ledger bulletin board:

"I am not in the slightest concerned about...the committee going before the Regional Labor Board, but I will make it quite nervous for quite a number of the Ledger chapter personnel if the thing ever reaches that point. You can go to all the regional boards you damn please but you will get no relief from the Ledger until you come to me personally."

So saying, Publisher Russell announced he would discharge 16 employes--25% of his staff--promised to fire a like number after Christmas. Actually only eight Ledger men were discharged. These, said Publisher Russell, were out for economy.

Last week the Guild tried to negotiate with Publisher Russell for reinstatement of the eight, a promise of no further dismissals "without cause" for the present, no hiring of new newsmen for 30 days. He refused. Egged on by President Broun, the Newark Guild called a strike on the Ledger, the first movement of its kind by the Guild against any large metropolitan newspaper. Of 52 staffmen (exclusive of the managing editor and his assistant) 46 walked out, according to the Guild. The local newsdealers' association helped with pamphlets flaying Publisher Russell. Then the publisher offered to arbitrate.

In Washington, meanwhile, William Randolph Hearst threatened to withdraw from NRA because of a Guild case. Last July a rewriteman named Dean S. Jennings complained that he was forced to resign from Hearst's San Francisco Call-Bulletin in order to attend the Guild's national convention. The San Francisco Labor Board handed the case up to the National Labor Relations Board. Last week Lawyer-Lobbyist Elisha Hanson, representing Publisher Hearst, challenged the jurisdiction of the National Labor Board, insisted that the case belonged to the Newspaper Industrial Board set up under the Newspaper Publishers Code. Said he:

"If the National Labor Board issues an order in this case, Mr. Hearst will not comply with it. Mr. Hearst's position is that if the Code is meaningless in so far as the Government is concerned, it is meaningless in so far as he is concerned."

Oakland. Another well-publicized Guild case was that of Louis Burgess, who said he was fired from his editorial job on Hearst's San Francisco Examiner, after seven years, because of Guild activities (TIME, May 14). The Regional Labor Board and the National Labor Board shuttled the case back & forth for six months until last fortnight when the Regional Board suddenly announced that the Burgess petition for reinstatement had been denied. Next day, in the office of the conservative Oakland Tribune across the bay, Estolv Ward was called to the city desk. For ten years a rewrite man on the Tribune, he had been elected chairman of that paper's Guild chapter. Said hoarse, red-headed City Editor Stanley Norton: "I have been directed to tell you there is going to be retrenchment, and to let you go, effective today."

The head of the Tribune's copy desk was No. 2 officer of the Guild chapter. Few days later he found himself without a job. Next to go involuntarily was the Tribune's chief librarian, nine years on the job before he joined the Guild. The Tribune's explanation: "Inefficiency....Reorganization under way for some time."

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