Striking the Washington 'Post'

...Of the newspaper's 13 unions, all except the Newspaper Guild chapter, covering editorial and clerical workers, voted to honor the picket lines...

...And the fact is that more than two years ago, the paper had already begun instituting a get-tough policy aimed at reducing expenditures and asserting greater control over its unions...

...With the help of her editors, publisher Katherine Graham succeeded in getting the paper out for 16 days...

...But the pressmen pointed out that they could earn more than the additional $58.10 under the present contract by working overtime, and that the $400,000 came to only $720 per year per man—not very much consolation for all the rights lost...

...Or perhaps it is a signal that the craft union structure is no longer appropriate in an increasingly automated industry, and that a single organization of all newspaper workers would bring greater strength to collective bargaining...

...The proposed changes included the union's loss of jurisdiction over manning procedures and loss of some grievance procedures, and a 10 per cent reduction in the labor force, with the extra work to be done by a unit of "floaters...

...Had it been preparing for a strike, and if so, for how long...

...Pickets went up around the Post on October I, shortly after several workers had damaged all nine of the paper's printing presses...

...That same month the contract talks began...

...He said that after grossing $10.5 million in 1972, it had fallen short of its projected goal for 1973 and increased profits by "only" $313,000...

...You pick sides according to who you are and where you've been in the last 30 years...

...We knew these changes would be difficult for the union to accept," Post Executive Vice President Mark Meagher said later...

...Management was thwarted, however, by the pressmen, who refused to allow publication...

...The paper then used its own nonunionized employes to operate the presses...

...This could give the publisher the right to use nonunion workers...

...The company, complaining of featherbedding and a general lack of control in the pressroom, declared it would try to "buy back" authority it had bargained away in 70 years of previous negotiations...

...The company subsequently decided to aim for a 15 per cent gross return...

...In 1971 the Washington Post Company, which also owns Newsweek, the Trenton Times, and five television and two radio stations, went public...

...The New York Times, by comparison, grossed 4.2 per cent in 1974...

...Enter the pressmen...

...Last July, U.S...

...Management became more interested in cutting costs and making profits than in the welfare of its workers...

...He was referring to the three-month old pressmen's strike at the Washington Post...

...To be very blunt about it," she continued, "in past years this paper developed a reputation for avoiding a strike at almost any cost —and when we said last year that those days are gone forever I'm sure many people just didn't believe it...

...The floaters would be on 24 hours notice, "guaranteed an opportunity to work five shifts a week" unless they failed to accept employment on any shift offered...

...The Post was more successful the following year, when reporters struck but did not picket in an attempt to gain a wage increase merely by "withdrawing their excellence.' They exaggerated their own importance...

...Whether or not this is "classic" management behavior may be debatable, but the management itself happens to be special...

...The Post, for its part, seized on the destruction as an excuse "to exercise its right to publish.' Until the damage was repaired a few days later, printing plates were helicoptered to nonunionized shops outside of Washington...

...If they refused this magnanimous offer, they were told, the paper would block their attempts to gain unemployment compensation, claiming that work was available...

...A group of reporters supporting the pressmen termed it "absurd," and went on to say: "We don't believe the Post's final offer was a serious attempt to deal with the issues that prompted the strike...

...Some of the other provisions in the initial Post offer to the pressmen read as follows: -"It is agreed that nothing contained herein shall be interpreted as to prevent the Office [management] from scheduling shifts, day or night, or combinations thereof, to meet the operating requirements of the office...

...The pressmen charged the Post had been foot-dragging on contract negotiations, and said "some of the men were upset...

...That signaled the end of an era," one Post reporter told me...

...Meanwhile, company President Larry Israel evaluated the paper's financial performance for the shareholders...

...Its editorial pages have traditionally been sympathetic to labor—at least on the subject of other company's disputes, such as Farah's and Gallo's...

...If the Publisher has 'reason to believe' the Union will be unable to supply the number of requested persons, the Publisher may subcontract work covered by this Agreement to any firm or printing or publishing company to the extent necessary...

...How much did the paper know about the pressmen's impatience...

...As Post reporter Tom Grubisich commented, "to be sure of a full work week, they might find it necessary to wear electronic beepers on their belts or pajamas...

...District Court Judge George L. Hart upheld the union and ordered the men back to their jobs until the matter was settled by arbitration...

...These teams got a chance to practice their new skills in late 1973, when the printers staged a work stoppage...

...The reporters gave in, accepting essentially the same contract presented to them before they walked out...

...Since the total amount of work had not diminished, those to be laid off were offered positions as substitutes, meaning they would be paid at straight time rates with no hospitalization, sick or accident benefits, annual leave, life insurance, or contributions to the pension fund...

...We can only conclude that management deliberately made an unacceptable offer to the pressmen in an effort to keep the entire union from ever returning to the building...

...Nonunion secretaries typed copy that was then fed into automated equipment...

...The special relationship that had existed between the Post and its employes seemed to disappear...

...Especially after the paper's rapid and unequivocal rejection of a December 31 plea that it reopen negotiations, issued by a new committee of 100 political, professional, religious, and union leaders, other commentators have come to basically the same conclusion...

...In the present situation, the Post pictures itself as the innocent victim of violent thugs...

...The Post tried to "buy" these changes with a $58.10 wage increase and a total of $400,000 in productivity bonus payments, both spread over a three-year period...

...One phase of the plan involved the training of management and nonunion production teams at a special center in Oklahoma City, to insure the paper's ability to publish in the event of a strike...

...Bonnif Potter, a free-lacne journalist, is based in Washington, D.C...

...Most newspapers average closer to 2 or 3 per cent...

...In December 1974, almost a year before their vandalism, the Post announced a 20 per cent job reduction in the pressroom...

...The "final offer" made by the Post last month was not very different from the first one...

...Perhaps the Post strike is a sign of the times, the growing tendency to make labor the scapegoat for all of the country's current economic ills...

...The Post, after all, is the newspaper that exposed Watergate before our eyes, and even received a United Auto Workers Social Justice Award as the "champion of the people's right to know...

...But we were willing to pay for them...

...Now it is flying in permanent pressroom replacements from all over the country...

...But a number of questions have to be answered...

...Rights of management which have not been limited expressly or by implication by the terms of this Agreement shall continue unchanged, [but] any and all written side agreements or verbal understandings or so-called shop practices shall be considered no longer in effect...

...Whatever the case, when even one of the country's most liberal newspapers is no longer willing to seek out the liberal solutions to such confrontations that it once preached, the implications for labor as a whole are ominous...

...Graham told a shareholders' meeting in July that the strike marked "a significant change in the paper's attitude toward labor negotiations...