Baltimore Blackout

For the first time in 128 years, Baltimore was without a newspaper. After six weeks of name-calling negotiations, the 728-man Newspaper Guild struck the Sun. The paper managed to limp along for three days last week with a skeleton staff. Then the drivers and printers refused to cross the picket lines; and the morning, evening and Sunday Suns were forced to shut down. Baltimore's only other paper, Hearst's News-American, also closed down in support of the Sun.

The battle is over union security and what Baltimore reporters call "the D.C. gap." The Sun management pays Guild reporters a top minimum of $150 a week, compared with the $190 that Guild reporters get in nearby Washington. In the past, Baltimore's Guild went along with management's offers, but this year it got tough. Spurred on by the more powerful Washington chapter, it reorganized as a Washington local. It also imported a veteran Washington negotiator, a move the company denounced as a "Washington takeover." The company's last offer was a $10 boost in minimum pay over two years.

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