FROM THE MORGUE

01 Dec 2009

The Guild Reporter

Three Guild locals sign contracts with innovative “war clauses,” guaranteeing the jobs of Guild members serving in the military “in the event of armed conflict.” . . . Hearst thugs unleash a new wave of violence against striking Guild members at the Herald American in Chicago, shooting at strikers manning a sound truck and beating men and women alike. . . . The Guild’s job placement service is expanded, to help not only unemployed Guild members but those who feel they are in stop-gap positions.

Two hundred Guild-represented jobs are eliminated in the wake of a merger between two of the three dailies in Columbus, Ohio. . . . Hearst files a $3.1 million libel suit against the Guild, its officers and the Guild Reporter, over a story about consolidation of Hearst and Scripps-Howard newspapers. . . . A printers’ strike results in 750 members of the Greater Boston Guild getting locked out.

With talks in the San Juan Star walkout deadlocked after six weeks, Guild strikers publish a 24-page English-language strike weekly, the San Juan Sun. . . . Guild President Chuck Perlik and Ernie Mercer, president of the Washington-Baltimore Guild, are arrested at the South African embassy in an anti-apartheid protest. . . . Jim Schaufenbil, president of the Manchester Guild, joins the national Guild staff as an organizer.