Battle Lines in Detroit

Until 1955, Detroit had never had a newspaper strike. Since then, the city's papers have been struck so regularly that by 1959 newspaper readers were dryly referring to "Detroit's Fourth Annual Newspaper Strike." That year, in fact, there were two walkouts--after which Hearst's morning Times, weakened by the high cost of labor warfare, sold out to the evening News, and was discontinued. Despite this omen, one or the other of the survivors, the News and the morning Free Press, was struck again in 1961, 1962 and 1963. Last week both were out of print--silenced by Detroit's ninth newspaper strike in as many years.

Classic Confrontation. This year's walkout was staged by two unions: the pressmen, who have taken a bellwether role in six of the nine strikes, and the paper and plate handlers' union, whose members do such unskilled work as hauling paper rolls and printing plates from one shop location to another. The current dispute shed no clear light on the causes of Detroit's perennial newspaper strife; in the classic labor-management confrontation, the two unions simply demanded more money than the publishers wanted to pay. But behind the public issues lay grievances so deep, and by now so chronic, as to defy ready cure.

In Detroit, newspaper unions have long been uneasily aware of the anti-union sentiments of Free Press Publisher John S. Knight, who also has papers in Akron, Charlotte, N.C., and Miami. It is Knight's avowed policy to de-unionize his plants, a process he began with the Miami Herald. When the pressmen's contract expired in 1961, Knight refused to renew it; the Herald's presses have since rolled without benefit of union help.

Knight's fellow publishers in Detroit were in total sympathy with his approach. The Detroit Newspaper Publishers' Association, which was formed in 1945, now regards a strike against one paper as a strike against all. The publishers hired as negotiator one Robert C. Butz, a man who had earned a reputation as a tough antilabor type. The Detroit publishers also declared their intention "to tighten controls in contracts"--in short, to eliminate union work practices, such as the paid 15-minute washup, that management considered extravagant.

"Long Strike." When the stereotypers' union struck all Detroit papers in 1955, demanding a full day's extra pay for working more than eight hours in any day, the battle lines were clearly drawn, and the unions embarked on their succession of Detroit strikes with an implacability of purpose that matched the publishers'. Three years ago, after John Knight shut the door on union pressmen in Miami, the union exported a contingent of Miami picketers to Detroit. Free Press pressmen promptly walked out.

This week's strike bid fair to be both bitter and protracted. The pressmen who had walked out were not negotiating at all. The two papers, which have kept editorial hands busy at make-work, by week's end were proposing two-week vacations for all salaried employees. Said Bart Piscitello, president of the Detroit pressmen's local: "We're planning on a long strike."

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