Time to Compromise

From the Portland Oregonian:

BILLY GRAHAM WARNS STALIN

Time to Compromise

After nine weeks of futile negotiations to end the strike on New York's World-Telegram and Sun, Federal Labor Mediator Walter Maggiolo decided the time had come to talk turkey. Said Maggiolo: "The strike has gone too far for either side to win a clear-cut victory. There will have to be a compromise."

Last week Maggiolo persuaded both sides to settle down to intensive, almost continuous negotiations to work one out. In one room in his offices he put W.T. & S. reprsentatives. Newspaper Guild negotiators were put in another room near by. Maggiolo and fellow mediators shuttled back & forth between the rooms, relaying terms. At 5:15 a.m. one day last week, the dog-tired, red-eyed negotiators finally came to terms. As they shook hands, World-Telly Managing Editor B. O. McAnney said: "I am very happy that both sides have reached an agreement we can live under." As such, it was not a clear-cut victory for either side.

Safe for a Year. The chief issue of the strike,' the largest major walkout in Guild history, was union arid job security. In the end, the Guild negotiators settled for the same offer that management had made a month ago, which a group of rebel Guilds-men had tried to get the Guild to accept (TIME, Aug. 14). The job-security clause permits arbitration of contested firings, with dismissals to be made only "for good and sufficient cause."

The strikers won a management promise to make no economy staff cuts for a year. Said Thomas Murphy, executive vice president of the New York Guild: "Even if the Telly loses 50% of its advertising, no one can be laid off for a year." Salaries were also to be boosted. The pre-strike minimum salaries had run from $36 to $110 a week. It was reported that under the proposed agreement they would range from $39 to $120--just about what the strikers had demanded. But the 10% general wage increase which the Guild had demanded had been chopped to an average increase of about 6%.

The agreement would not go into effect until the strikers voted on it. If they approved it, the W.T. & S. would probably be back on the streets in about a week.

Gone for Good? The strike had been costly for both sides. The 400 striking Guildsmen together with the 1,000 A.F.L. printers, stereotypers and pressmen who had refused to cross Guild picket lines had already lost upwards of $1,000,000 in wages. The World-Telegram and Sim had lost a huge amount in advertising and circulation revenue. But the full cost of the strike to management was still an unknown quantity. While the W.T. & S. was off the newsstands, New York's two other evening papers had both increased their daily circulation. It was estimated that the Post had jumped about 110,000 and the Journal-American about 70,000. The early evening edition of the morning Herald Tribune was believed to have sold about 40,000 extra papers daily. How many of the World-Telegram and Sun's 600,000 pre-strike readers had been lured away for good was anybody's guess.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.