Why Are We Striking?

New York is muddling through its fourth newspaper strike since 1962, but this one excites a lot less attention than its predecessors. This is probably because only two newspapers are blacked out and because newspaper strikes, like death, taxes and other inevitable happenings, have become so routine they bore the public.

Three of the four strikes since ’62 were called by the New York Newspaper Guild, which represents office and editorial employees The first was in 1962, a week-long stoppage in the Daily News. Then, last September, came the three-week New York Times strike, blacking out all the city’s papers except the Post, which quit the Publishers Association during an earlier strike and resumed publication. The current strike by the Guild is against the newly-merged World Journal Tribune, a venture composed of the old Herald Tribune, the World-Telegram and Sun and the Journal- American. Or perhaps the strike is against the three individual papers. Even the Guild seems unsure about that; its pickets march in front of the plants of the three old papers carrying signs proclaiming them to be “On Strike,” but failing to name the target of their strike.

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George Merlis

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New York is muddling through its fourth newspaper strike since 1962, but this one excites a lot less attention than its predecessors. This is probably because only two newspapers are blacked out and because newspaper strikes, like death, taxes and other inevitable happenings, have become so routine they bore the public.

Three of the four strikes since ’62 were called by the New York Newspaper Guild, which represents office and editorial employees The first was in 1962, a week-long stoppage in the Daily News. Then, last September, came the three-week New York Times strike, blacking out all the city’s papers except the Post, which quit the Publishers Association during an earlier strike and resumed publication. The current strike by the Guild is against the newly-merged World Journal Tribune, a venture composed of the old Herald Tribune, the World-Telegram and Sun and the Journal- American. Or perhaps the strike is against the three individual papers. Even the Guild seems unsure about that; its pickets march in front of the plants of the three old papers carrying signs proclaiming them to be “On Strike,” but failing to name the target of their strike.