No Motion

"They're not ready to negotiate, and until they are, there's not much to talk about. So you say something, and they say no. Then you wait for the mediator to tell you to go home."

The words were spoken by Bertram A. Powers, president of the International Typographical Union Local 6, which by striking four Manhattan dailies last December incited into silence all seven of the city's papers and two on Long Island. But the sentiment might just as well have come from the mouth of Amory H. Bradford, the publishers' chief representative.

Although it was true that the opposing sides have met 17 times, it was equally true that neither has made a significant move toward settlement. In recent sessions, the publishers and the printers shifted positions slightly, but only by inches in a dispute that called for seven-league strides. The printers dropped their demand for an extra week's paid vacation--something that Bert Powers had not expected to get anyway. The publishers withdrew their resistance to "bogus"--a printers' make-work practice of unnecessarily resetting some advertising type.

But Powers and Bradford were not really bargaining at all. "Management has made its final offer," said one of Bradford's aides. This could mean that Powers has already lost the strike that he began. But, perhaps encouraged by a pan-union demonstration of solidarity at the New York Times Building. Powers went right on acting like a man who feels victory in his grasp.

In Cleveland, where strikebound papers have been shut down one week longer than they have in New York, the situation was no better.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.