FUTURE OF GUILD HANGS ON WASH. POST ELECTION

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP88-01315R000400070068-0
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 16, 2016
• Document Release Date: October 27, 2004
• Sequence Number: 68
• Publication Date: July 10, 1976
• Content Type: OPEN

ON PAGE
Futu're of
o 0% n W ash.
uild hangs
OS~ &ecton
By 1. William Hill
The Newspaper Guild meld its 43rd an-
mural convention in WWashington. D.C.
(June.2S-July 2) with these highlights:
Approval of a new plan aimed at
keeping Washington Post Guildsmen in
the Guild and healing wounds left by
Washington-Baltimore Local 35's execu-
tive board's attempt to discipline Post
Guildsmen for continuing to work during
the long pressmen's strike at The Post.
Decision to advance the Guild's
wage goak to S650 p ,n week for the top
minimum of key classifications, with a
starting minimum of at least two-thirds of
that amount (5=133), and to S335 per week
for the top minimum of all other classi-
fications.
0 Decision to press for a voluntary
international pension program to benefit
the 3000 Guild-covered employes who
face retirement without pension. The
program would be administered by the
Guild with an equal number of Guild rind
employor represelitalives as trustees.
? Decision to push for employer-
financed child-care center to serve both
pre-school and after-school children of
employes.
The action involving The Washington
Post was the most dramatic of the con-
vention. With the National I..ahor Rela-
tions Board setting July.. 17, 20 and 21 as
dates for an election requested by Post
Guilcimen to determine if the Guild or an
independent Washington Newspaper
Union should be their bargaining agent,
President Charles A. Perlik, Jr. went be-
fore the convention on t!ie first day to
say this:
'.What confronts us is the danger of
one of the severest setbacks to threaten
this union in decades, if not its entire
history. We are faced with the very real
possibility of losing the fourth largest
unit in the Guild, a unit hirer than 78 of
the Guild's 33 local',. a unit whose key
top minimnui rs for years have led all the
rest and are today the only ones effcc-
315RQ G4 700a
would have to stay inside Local 35, with
the executive board that had sought to
punish them for ignoring a pressmen
strike that had begun with serious dam-
age to the Post pressroom.
Perlik went on to say that a poll in the
Post unit had convinced him that group
would stay in the Guild if they could
have a unit separate from Local 35. This
procedure required the approval of Local
.35's executive board, however, and the
board opposed a separate unit.
Offers to resign
It was not until the night before the
convention ended that a solution for the,
stalemate was found. At that time,
moves to create a union separate from
Local 35 were dropped after the conven-
tion voted for a change in operation of
Local 35 and Brian Flores, its adminis-
trative officer toward whom the Post unit
had been particularly hostile, had offered
to resign in a highly emotional address.
Flores has headed Local 35 since 1966
but had been denounced as a ''tyrant"
by some Post guild members after he
brought disciplinary charges against
therm and attempted to levy lines for their
continuing to work at the Post during the
pressmen's strike.
The operating change voted by the
convention follows it plan that a Guild
official told E&P has been used in San
Francisco, Oakland and Detroit. It calls
for a representative assembly elected in
the local, one that would outrank the
executive board that caused the Post
unit's bitterness.
If the Guild wins in the NLRB elec-
tion, Flores would resign with Dorothy
A. Struzinski serving as interim adminis-
trative officer until, with the approval of
the new representative assembly, a new
administrative officer is chosen.
In 1975, the Guild convention had
urged that the union move with "prudent
speed" toward a merger with the Inter-
national Typographical Union. This year
the convention reaffirmed that policy
and stated that a joint Guild-ITU Task
Force was instrumental in bringing about
Lively over $500, a u nil '.whose loss would settlements which helped save three
have a devastating effect on both our newspapers from threatened financial
bargaining and Our organizing for years failure-The Washington Star, The Can-
to conic." cinnati Post and Times, and time St. Louis
In the same speech, Perlik emphasized Post-Dispatch. The convention also took
that in trying to solve the Post problem. action urging that locals be encouraged
the objective from the start had been to to coordinate their bargaining, or "better
keep the Post unit inside the Guild and still, seek joint bargaining, with other
inside Local 35 (the Washington- unions in their shops."
want," he said, "is a little bit of input
into the thinking that takes place before
members cast their votes." And also:
"Tine fact we h:'ve a policy of political
involvement doesn't mean that we have
to apply it unvaryingly, blinding our-
selves to the r-nfavorablt: consequences
that may flow from it under slxocific cir-
cumstances. We have to be sure the
value of an endorsement isn't out-
weighed by the turn-moil-11 m:r} create, or
else we will find ourselves helping
neither ourselves nor the candidate we
are inclined to support."
Another point emphasized by Pei-Ilk i
was the neces,rty for doing something
about "the growing evil" of Southern
Production Program, Inc., fire Oklahoma
City center where newspaper executives
and regular employes are trained to
handle ,ill pir:r;e,: of newspaper produc-
tion in case of it strike. As a result, the
convention voted to "invite. the leaders
of other newspaper unions to join in
seeking legislative and/or court examina-
tion of such !.cab braining arrangements
to determine whether or not they con-
form with existing labor law and policies
and whether new legislation is needed to
deal with scab schools."
Other actions taken by tfr;: convention
included: Approving; the levying of special or
ganizin;; .assessments for the months of
March mind April. 1977, to hire additional
international repreticr:tatives to take ad-
vantage of continuing organizing oppor-
tunities.
Applauding the Supreme. Court for its
action on June 30 to overturn the Ne-
braska gag order but expressing concern
"because the court stopped short of de-
claring unequivocally that the decision of
what, where and when to publish is not
one to be made by the judiciary."
Supporting further efforts to protect
the liberty of the Fresno Four and Wil-
liam 1'. Farr, who face jail after the Sup-
reme Court failed to review their con-
tempt convictions following on their re-
fusal to reveal news sources.
Demanding that the Central Intelli-
gence Agency halt immediately the use
of all journalists, including free lances
and stringers, as informants, and deplor-
ing the misc of pr:-ss credentials by CIA
agents.
Urging the Senate Judiciary Commit-
tee to give S-1 the "burial it deserves"
and to consider a substitute bill without
the oppressive sections woven into the
fabric of S-1.
Urging appropriate committees of both
the House and Senate to give short shrift
to the Official Secrets Act supported by
President Ford_
Urging all locals to affiliate with Free-
Baltimore Guild). GAptproved]R-(Wt-ReleaSwr2lROfrlOi 6Rer, rift 4t+REDPSB CII345ROO0400GOO6*aO committees in their
however, had convinced him that the the Guild's endorsement of a Presidential respective states to work toward a "full
Guild could not possibly win the coming candidate four years ago, but said lie was and complete flow of information to the
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