Analysis of a Long Running Newspaper Strike

Thomas J. Keil's achievement in On strike! Capital Cities and the Wilkes-Barre newspaper unions is considerable. The book is an account of a long-running strike in which the unions, due to the local tradition of fierce unionism, were able to muster sufficient grassroots support to enable them to produce a rival newspaper which was still in operation (and perhaps even beating out the first paper) ten years after the strike was called. Keil's book analyzes the strike with great objectivity and provides an illuminating look at what union solidarity can accomplish. But Keil does not make a case either for the unions or for Capital Cities, the company that bought the paper. He maintains an even tone throughout and, without any of the heroics often associated with writing about labor struggles, keeps the reader engrossed. His dispassionate but involved writing is a model of organization and logical presentation of a complicated situation. He succeeds, therefore, in getting the reader to think carefully about the nature of communities and the force of the common interests that bind them together.

Keil also leaves the reader with disturbing questions about which directions communities ought to pursue in their own best interests. The promise of attracting investment and aiding the economically depressed Wilkes-Barre area was held out by Capital Cities, a large multimedia conglomerate. But this promise came with the price of assuming control over their business, including c

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that the newspaper workers' unions walked out. Nor is it surprising that they enjoyed a great deal of support from the community, even among portions of the business elite. What is surprising is the extent of that support and the manner in which it allowed the union workers to set up a successful rival paper. Keil begins with the history of the county and the coal miners' struggle to achieve a "platform for collective action," which they finally found with the United Mine Workers (UMW) (p. 27). In the struggle the diverse ethnic groups in the area were initially divided. Workers from English-speaking backgrounds resented and despised the more recent Eastern and Southern European arrivals. The strong ethnic identification led to the formation of relatively self-contained ethnic communities in which institutions such as "taverns, churches, neighborhoods, and benevolent associations" became vital to the survival of workers and their families in an area where the leading businesses took no responsibility for the public welfare (p. 23). The owners of the mines and the local upper class "fanned interethnic rivalries through the press and other means" (p. 26). Yet through the recognition of common interests fostered by the union

Category: Business - A