TIME: Almanac 1993/TIME Almanac 1993.iso/time/111290/1112201.000

Text File | 1992-08-28 | 6.0 KB | 121 lines

                                                                                BUSINESS, Page 54

Down and Dirty at the News


Amid threats and violence, the fight for New York City's
largest tabloid could set the tone for labor relations in the
'90s


    "If Charlie is going to stick it to you, he'll punch you in
the face, but he won't stab you in the back," says an admiring
associate of Charles Brumback, chief executive of Chicago's
Tribune Co. Either way, Brumback is a heavyweight champion of
union busting. Five years ago, the Tribune declared war on its
organized labor and, after a bitter strike, effectively broke
it. Last week Brumback's company was locked in an even fiercer
and more far-reaching strike by nine unions, which management
had done its share to provoke, at the media giant's troubled New
York Daily News.

    For organized labor, the strike at the third largest U.S.
metropolitan daily quickly became a cause celebre. More than
10,000 municipal workers and other sympathizers joined strikers
in a rally outside News headquarters. Inside, the strikebound
paper's editors were frantically offering jobs to reporters at
other publications and trying to woo back wavering staffers to
help put out the News. "My boss was on the phone again this
afternoon pleading with me to come back," said a striking
reporter. "It was an incredibly hard sell. He said, `You still
have your job, but we can't promise that for tomorrow.'"

    The anxiety was as high-pitched as the blue-collar tabloid's
front-page headlines. Not since Ronald Reagan fired striking
air-traffic controllers in 1981, which put unions on the
defensive for the rest of the decade, have the stakes seemed so
high in a labor struggle. "This is happening in New York City,
which traditionally has been a union stronghold," says Philip
Mattera, author of Prosperity Lost, a study of worker setbacks
in the 1980s. "If the unions can be broken in New York City,
that's going to be felt throughout the country."

    At issue is the company's determination to uproot work rules
that, it argues, reflect generations of featherbedding that cost
the News some $70 million a year in excessive wages and
benefits. The newspaper says it loses $50 million annually.
"These contracts are a nightmare," says News publisher James
Hoge. "You can't manage effectively under them."

    The strike flared from a minor dispute that swiftly
escalated amid long-standing tensions between the News and its
unions, which represent most of the paper's 2,700 employees.
After a supervisor ordered a worker with a medical disability
to stand up on the job last month, a group of union drivers
walked out of the plant, providing an opportunity for management
to replace them. The News, which last year began training
nonunion replacement workers at sites in Florida and New
Jersey, rushed a busload of substitute drivers to the scene. The
next day the paper declared that 60 replaced drivers had lost
their jobs. As word of the dismissals spread, the unions
launched a general strike that seemed to play into management's
strategy by enabling it to bring in more nonunion workers.

    The dispute turned into an old-fashioned brawl. Strikers
have hurled rocks and bottles at News delivery trucks and warned
dealers against selling the paper. Distribution may be
management's weakest point. While the News has been printing
more than 1 million papers a day, strikers contend that only a
few hundred thousand have been reaching newsstands. The paper
even resorted to handing out 200,000 free copies a day on the
street.

    In the war for public opinion, the unions have some weak
spots. The violence could reduce sympathy for the strike. And
the contrast between the mostly white strikers and the many
black and Hispanic replacement workers has enabled management
to portray union members as privileged and entrenched. Moreover,
at least 100 of the 750 employees who belong to the Newspaper
Guild went back to their desks last week. Declared one returning
worker: "Why should I, as a black woman who feels the need to
be two to three times as good as a white counterpart just to get
the same recognition, support some spoiled white brat who
doesn't want to work?"

    For its part, management hopes to wear down the strikers
through a war of attrition that would force the unions to agree
to new contracts on management's tough terms -- or face a
permanent lockout. The unions, on the other hand, hope they can
cripple the News and force the Tribune Co. to sell the paper to
a more compatible owner.

    Management's hard-nosed strategy is vintage Brumback. While
he earns an estimated $1.2 million a year, the flinty Brumback,
62, wears plain white shirts and dark gray suits and disdains
any hint of waste or excess. He is so intent on repeating his
Tribune victory in New York City that colleagues have begun
calling the News strike "Charlie II."

    But some experts doubt that Brumback will prevail.
"Management has really overplayed its hand on this one," says
Lawrence Mishel, research director of the Economic Policy
Institute, a Washington think tank. For one thing, the Tribune
strike lacked the support of that paper's drivers, who readily
crossed picket lines to preserve their lucrative contracts.

    The outcome is likely to be decided in the struggle for the
hearts of the striking editorial workers and in pitched battles
to get the News to readers. If management prevails, the Tribune
Co. will have provided a blueprint for breaking even the most
powerful and established unions. But if union members hold out
long enough to paralyze the paper, the company's pugilistic
philosophy is likely to be spurned by other managers in favor
of the more conciliatory style now espoused by the Detroit
automakers. A clear victory by either side in the News battle
is likely to help set the tone of labor relations in the 1990s.


By John Greenwald. Reported by Christine Gorman/New York and
William McWhirter/Chicago.