Seeds in St. Louis

When 332 American Newspaper Guild members walked out of Sam Newhouse's St. Louis Globe-Democrat last Feb. 21, no one really expected them to stay out for long. The strike issues--chiefly pensions and job security--scarcely sounded desperate or even irreconcilable. But the guild was well heeled and angry, and Sam Newhouse, with the paper closed down, was not taking a heavy net loss from day to day. Within a week the walkout turned into a bitter siege.

As weeks and months wore by, idled Globe employes took work elsewhere; others struggled along on strike benefits (up to $80 a week). Left without a morning paper, Globe-Democrat readers and advertisers bolted en masse to the Post-Dispatch, which gained better than 60,000 in new circulation during the strike.

Last week both sides had had enough, hammered out mutually acceptable terms: a written guarantee of pension benefits, increased job security, a 3.3% wage increase. St. Louis guild leaders, passing the terms along to international headquarters for formal endorsement, hailed them as the fruits of victory.

But like too many strike winnings, the fruits were seedy.' Irrevocably lost during the 101-day siege: an estimated $600,000 in workers' pay, an estimated $5,000,000 in revenue to the Globe-Democrat, plus incalculable long-range losses in subscribers and advertisers. "No one," said Globe Publisher Richard H. Amberg, "wins a strike that lasts as long as this one."

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