No Papers for New York

A strike closes the city's three major dailies

Mayor Ed Koch stood on his dignity and declined to read the funnies over the air as Fiorello La Guardia had done during a New York City newspaper strike 33 years earlier. No matter. Soupy Sales and Eartha Kitt read Doonesbury and other comic strips on expanded news shows. New York Post Gossip Writer Diane Judge also went on the air to read her own column. Nonunion reporters at the Daily News passed the time at their 42nd Street offices by writing obituaries for future use. At the Times building across town, police kept an eye on the small group of picketers.

For the first time in 15 years, New York's major dailies were shut down. The 1,500-member Newspaper Printing Pressmen's Union called the strike against the Times, News and Post (combined circulation: 3.4 million) and was backed up by all but one of its nine fellow craft unions (the typesetters, the only holdouts, have a no-strike contract) as well as by the Newspaper Guild, which represents editorial employees. New Yorkers found their familiar newsstands either closed or peddling increased press runs of the Wall Street Journal and suburban papers; uninformed shoppers could not take advantage of the summer close-out sales; television and radio stations geared up for increased news programming.

As in countless other newspaper bargaining sessions, the sticking points in New York were job security and automation. The city's publishers have been trying for more than 15 years to revamp their antediluvian production methods and eliminate wasteful staffing practices, but the craft unions, fearing job losses and declining membership, have always resisted. In March 1977, the Publishers Association, representing the three dailies, informed the pressmen that when the old contract expired on March 30, 1978, it intended to demand major changes in work rules. The papers hope to reduce through attrition the swollen crews and institute "room manning," a system that would employ only enough workers to run the presses efficiently. The goal is to bring the ratio of men to machines in the pressroom down to that of many newspapers across the country. The union argues that innovations at the papers have created a need for more--not fewer--pressmen, and that management's proposal would eventually cost up to 50% of the membership their jobs--a figure the publishers do not dispute.

For four months after the contract expired, talks dragged on. To induce the union to accept the new contract, management offered tempting wage increases; the pressmen would not budge. With no agreement in sight, the papers set a deadline of Aug. 8 for a settlement and pledged to institute their new rules unilaterally if no agreement were reached. After the publishers postponed the deadline for 24 hours, the pressmen came up with a counterproposal that was swiftly rejected; the publishers left the negotiating table to post their new work conditions, and the pressmen walked out.

Although a protracted strike like the 114-day walkout by the typesetters in 1962-63--which led to the demise of four New York papers--is unlikely, the parties are nowhere near a settlement. Said H.J. Kracke, chief bargainer for the publishers: "The union's response has been to demand even greater numbers of employees." One pressman summed up the union's determination to stand fast: "It's my work. It's for my family. I'd go to jail for it. I'd kill for it."

All three papers could probably print without the pressmen, but not as long as the key deliverers continue to support the walkout. So until the two sides settle, New Yorkers will have to depend on out-of-town papers and radio or television stations to sate their appetite for news. And comics. Soupy? Eartha? You're on!

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