1945
Strike paper published by the Newspaper Inter-union Conciliation Committee.
“Your new newspaper – the St. Louis Daily News – makes its bow today in response to an emergency. This emergency was created by the failure of the St. Louis Publishers Association to resolve a labor dispute which it has had under discussion for 20 months.
Rather than compromise their differences with the carriers’ union, the publishers chose to abandon their responsibilities to the people of St. Louis by suspending publication of the Globe-Democrat, the Post-Dispatch and the Star-Times.
The blackout of news which ensued has had far-reaching effects. One of them is the Daily News.
Another is that 2700 loyal employees of the three papers who had no connection with the dispute which caused the carriers’ strike have been deprived of their pay and their occupations.
In the first instance the publishers abdicated a position of trust and a function of overwhelming public importance. In the second they acted with wanton disregard of the feelings, the interests and the contractual rights of their employees.
The reasoning behind these maneuvers has been clouded with words but it follows an outline whose meaning is inescapable. The publishers want to break the strike without making any important concessions to the carriers. In the process they hope to deliver a damaging blow to organized labor. And to give a finishing touch of ingenuity to the operation, they propose to charge up the greater part of the cost to their locked-out employees.
Thie sort of ingenuity is hardly credible in a group of men who have presumed to exercise a moral and intellectual leadership in this community. But there it is and they are stuck with it. For the publishers are not going to resume their business until (1) they make a reasonable settlement with the carriers and (2) they agree in writing to pay every locked-out employee for all the time lost by suspension of publication.
Meanwhile, the Daily News has manned a deserted post and will carry on ‘for the duration.’ Our paper is staffed by the locked-out employees of the three dailies. We are publishing under unusual mechanical difficulties. But, at least, we have lifted the blackout.
(Published September 1, 1945)
