PASSING COMMENTviews of the editors
Guild’s first thirty
In August, the American Newspaper Guild will reach the thirtieth anniversary. of its beginnings those hurriedly called meetings of newspapermen in Cleveland, New York, and elsewhere that responded to the cry of the NRA Blue Eagle and to Heywood Broun’s summons to “hacks and white-collar slaves.” Before the end of 1933, a national union was born, and four years later it undertook to organize all newspaper white-collar workers.
Those first meetings were marked by a debate that has recurred continually over the thirty years. One way of stating the main question is, simply: Should there be something special about a newspaperman’s union? Certainly, it should work to improve wages and working conditions. But what else? Should it be part of the labor movement? Should it be a political force? Should it judge professional practices?
The Guild’s achievements
Most of these questions are answered formally in the Guild constitution. These stated objectives provide a convenient way to summarize the Guild’s progress:
to advance the economic interests of its mem- bers. Clearly the Guild has worked hardest to fulfill this objective —first winning recognition as a bargain- ing agent, later gaining improvements in pay, fringe benefits, hours, and tenure. These gains, it should be said, have been won not only for members but for “free riders” and for employees of non-Guild papers.
The most favorable appraisals credit Guild efforts with changing the character of the American news- paperman from gypsy to craftsman. As it was put by Judith Crist of the New York Herald Tribune in a 1959 issue of the Columbia University Forum: “...it took a union to make a profession out of newspaper reporting simply because the union achieved the eco- nomic security that frees a man to work in a truly professional manner in any field.” At the least, the Guild has put publisher-employee relations on a more businesslike basis. Most newspapermen will not regard this change as a loss.
To gain its economic goals, the Guild has resorted to conventional weapons of industrial warfare, includ- ing the strike. (The latest began in Honolulu on June 21.) The use of the strike has opened the Guild to three criticisms: first, that Guild strikes have killed newspapers; second, that the need for support has made the Guild a captive of other newspaper unions; third, that journalists on strike neglect a peculiar duty to keep open the flow of the news. The first has the appearance of truth only in a few cases of moribund newspapers; the two others will be discussed below.
…to guarantee, so far as it is able, constant honesty in the news. Until recently, the Guild paid little atten- tion to this objective. Yet, informally, it has been the focus of controversy since 1934, To be specific: Can Guild members write news—especially labor news—objectively? Despite all accusations, the answer of course has been demonstrated time and again: An Guild member will report, write, or edit honestly. To claim
honest, intelligent newspaperman or not otherwise is to say that Guild membership is auto- matically equivalent to dishonesty——a position that even anti-union publishers must reject.
...to raise the standards of journalism and ethics of the industry. The Guild adopted a contentious code of ethics irf 1934, but since has largely ignored this objective, as many members believe it should. Instead, the influence of the Guild on standards has been what- ever its bargaining has done to enable talent to enter or stay in the newspaper business. In addition, its barriers to arbitrary discharges and penalties have helped to create a spirit of professional independence
Against such gains must be weighed an accretion of those members that let the Guild buoy them up through time-serving careers. A union
the complacent
must bargain for all of its members, and this has been the price of impartiality to foster friendly cooperation with all other workers. This phrase, in practice, has been a euphe- mism for the mutual-assistance agreements that have grown between the Guild and other newspaper unions -~ most notably, their support of each other’s strikes in such places as Minneapolis, Detroit, Cleve- land, and New York. This condition of Guild mem- bership chafes many: yet it is an alliance the Guild worked years to achieve. .to promote industrial unionism in the news- paper industry. Thus far, the Guild has not taken this phrase literally. True industrial unionism in the news-2 Columbia Journalism Review
