Stall in Three Cities

Newspaper-strike season is upon the land. Detroit's two dailies were shut down nine weeks ago over a wage dispute that shows no signs of coming to an end. For five weeks the American Newspaper Guild has been picketing Hearst's Los Angeles Herald-Examiner, but the Herald-Examiner has hired non union personnel and continues to pub lish. Annoyed by this, out-of-work union men journeyed to San Francisco, where they set up "informational" picket lines around another Hearst paper, the San Francisco Examiner. Mailers, who had been negotiating with the Examiner, promptly walked out, thus also closing the locally owned San Francisco Chronicle, which is published in the same plant.

Teamsters v. Teamsters. Detroit has turned into a comedy of strikes. No sooner had the Press and News stopped publishing than three interim papers sprang up, ready to reap lush profits. Interestingly enough, the Teamsters, who had called the strike in the first place, were intimately involved in the publication of two of the new papers. All went swimmingly until the Teamsters' local demanded the same stiff wage increase from the interim papers that they had asked of the dailies: a 10% hike over two years, plus a $46 benefit package. Teamsters wanted the papers to hire all 730 of their out-of-work members.

The two Teamster-oriented papers found that they could not absorb such featherbedding, and shut down. That left one paper, the Daily Press, still in business. How long is anybody's guess, since the Teamsters are insisting that the Press alone hire all their out-of-work members. Meanwhile, management of the two struck regular dailies and the unions are not even talking.

There is talking in Los Angeles, but not much. "We're a helluva long way from anything yet," says a Guild spokesman. Aggrieved that they are paid one of the lowest minimums of any sizable paper in the country ($174.80 a week after five years), Guildsmen seek a $25.20-a-week raise over two years. Management has offered $13 over the same period. The longer the strike drags on, the more nonunion personnel the Herald-Examiner hires to put out the paper. It is not much different from the usual one. It skimps on local news, runs a lot of wire service copy, a flock of columnists and a strong sports page. The paper claims a 600,000 press run; its normal circulation is 730,000.

Nuggets of New Leftism. As in Detroit, interim papers have popped up in San Francisco, but they have not done very well. The Stanford Daily, which had added wire-service copy and increased its press run, gave up last week. The Berkeley student paper, the Daily Californian, is still struggling. Ramparts magazine has produced a slender daily with the motto: "What good is freedom of the press if there isn't one?" A free press apparently means little nuggets of New Leftism; last week the paper expanded somewhat, adding some Chronicle columnists. Meanwhile, out-of-town papers are enjoying brisk sales. The best local rundown of the day's news is provided by educational TV station KQED, which has hired some Chronicle people to read the news.

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