The Press: Base Strike in St. Louis

Still recovering from the effects of a 99-day strike by the American Newspaper Guild, the St. Louis Globe-Democrat was silenced again last week by a walkout of 44 stereotypers. This time, the Globe was a chance victim: the stereotypers struck St. Louis’ other paper, the Post-Dispatch, which bought the Globe plant last February and now prints both papers.

The stereotypers walked out on a point that might have been easily conceded by a union less jealous of its prerogatives. Post-Dispatch Publisher Joseph Pulitzer Jr. had agreed to union demands for $10-a-week pay boost this year and $5 in 1960, enough to pay the stereotypers their highest scale anywhere in the U.S. (duplicated only in Detroit). In exchange, the paper asked the union to relinquish its uneconomic control over “base,” the metal blocks on which engravings are laid. As it has been, a composing-room hand must take base blocks back to the stereotype department to be trimmed, even though he could easily trim them himself.

Fearful that the change might make less work for stereotypers, Leroy J. Selby, president of St. Louis Stereotypers Union No. 8, objected: “We have had these working conditions for over 35 years, and the publisher is trying to take them away.” The walkout of his tiny local threw 3,000 out of work and left St. Louis without a daily newspaper.