With the Teamsters' Help

The stakes were high. When the local unit of the American Newspaper Guild struck last month against the Philadelphia Inquirer of Walter Annenberg's Triangle Publications, the newsmen's union was fighting for survival in the city. With the Bulletin unorganized and a suspended contract at the Daily News, the Inquirer was the Guild's last stronghold in Philadelphia.

But under the pressures of the strike. Guild members were soon fighting one another. Some 15% of the membership on the Inquirer drifted back to work. Helped by a strike of the Teamsters (TIME, June 23) that bottled up the Inquirer's distribution, the Guild grimly put pressure on the defectors. Soundtrucks, parked near their homes, blared: "Your neighbor is a scab. He has sold 650 striking co-workers down the river." Pressure of a still grimmer kind was applied to Inquirer Movie Critic Mildred Martin, widow of Newsman Linton Martin. She got one phone call from a man who said: "This is Linton. Come down and see me soon."

Even after settling with the Inquirer last month, the Teamsters continued to give firm support to the Guild, refused to cross its picket line to go back to work. The Teamsters thereby limited the Inquirer to lobby sales averaging 19,000 v. normal circulation of 619,054.

Last week, after 38 bitter days, Inquirer and Guild finally came to terms. The Guild won a pay raise ($3-$5 a week for the next year) plus an arbitration clause for disputed firings, a shield against anticipated cutbacks. But when the workers returned to their jobs, they found new work schedules that penalized strikers in favor of strikebreakers; e.g., Amusement Page Editor Henry Murdock was assigned to work for Reviewer Barbara Wilson, a former subordinate who had been given his editorship. The Teamsters threatened to walk out once more unless the old assignments were reinstated.

Faced with the Teamsters' ultimatum, the Inquirer's management quickly gave in, put strikers back in their old jobs. At week's end, the Daily News, also owned by Triangle, announced restoration of the Guild's old contract, agreed to negotiate a new one. Saved by the heavy hand of the Teamsters, the Guild was back in business in Philadelphia.

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