The Waterbury Democrat., 1937-09-25
Eight On Strike

The Waterbury Democrat takes this occasion to extend a sincere apology to it's readers or its advertisers who may have been or will be embarrassed by the action of eight employees of our editorial departments who walked out on strike yesterday morning and are now engaged in picketing the plant of the Waterbury Democrat. A strike is not pleasant thing to be engaged in nor to be on the fringe of It very seldom is concluded ln peaceful fashion. It works hardship on !. all concerned. It usually fails to satisfy 2 either side when ultimately settled or ad- < tlsted
 1. In this particular instance 1t is the Waterbury Newspaper Guild, local branch of the American Newspaper ' Guild, which is an affiliate of the C1O, arrayed against the Waterbury Demo- crat Eight employees are concerned out of total employment in the Waterbury Democrat plant of eighty-two This does not include newsboys. Approximately half of the eighty-tWo employees are unionized, the majority being members of the Typographical and Pressman's s, Unions. These unions are members Of \ the American Federaton of Labor. That may give some sort of picture of the labor situation as 1t affects the Democrat.
 The Democrat has no apologies to make for Its stand in the present situa- \ tion. It met and conferred with local Guild officials, as well as national or ganizer not to mention members of the State Board of Mediation and Arbitra- tion. It agreed to do all that it could for the eight employees who had chosen the Waterbury Newspaper Guild as their tA ixa{1 fA plement their "betterment" campaign through this agency other means were adopted, such as solicitation by mail, supposedly sensational" news stories, etc.
 but refused because 1t imposed greater financial burden on the Democrat than 1t possibly could manage. The manage ment submitted counter scale proposal, which, it was led to infer, might have been accepted by the Guild, and of course, the eight complaining employees, IF the Democrat would bind itself down to Guild shop and adhere to the other requirements that the American News paper Guild is seeking to impose on news papers all over the nation. This the Democrat flatly refused to do.
 Some of the requirements needed no acceptance on the Democrats part as they are part of company policy today and have been for years past. In this respect the Democrat brides itself that its liberality in the past to its editorial employees has always been accepted in the spirit offered and never questioned as 1t is today. We have long tried to keep the rights of the employe on as high plane as was possible under existing conditions. At the same time the Waterbury Demo. crat does not believe that its own rights must be sacrificed There are corre- spending rights and duties existing be- tween employer and employe.
 Were the employer, the Waterbury Democrat in this case, to exact its pound of flesh, we are afraid that the cry of "slave wages" such as MT. Fitzpatrick used in his street broadcaStS yesterday might have some foundation. The living wage" is also flung into print and Democrat employees are pictured as delin- quent in rent, grocery and coal bills. Is then into such situation?
 The Democrat is ready and willing to play its part in this community life by obeying the laws of man and God; 1t hesltateS to encourage anything that might encourage law-breaking It fur ther reserves the right to follow path which contains no pitfalls and does not force newspaper publisher to sacrifice policy and paper to new-fangled ideas and ideals.
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