20th Century American History - Economic Aspects - General & Miscellaneous, Strikes, Organized Crime, Labor Negotiations, Newspapers & Magazines - History & Criticism, New York City - History, Media - General & Miscellaneous, Media - Theory & Philosophy

Strike

Name: Strike
Author: Richard Vigilante
ISBN: 9780671796310

by Richard Vigilante

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Overview

It was war on the streets of New York. Trucks and stores firebombed, workers beaten and stabbed, shop owners terrorized by goons using strongarm tactics. While public officials and politicians looked the other way, a brilliant but ruthless business empire squared off against nine desperate unions - one with mafia ties - convinced they must fight or die. It was a war for one of America's great newspapers. And both sides seemed willing to destroy the paper to save it. The Daily News strike of 1990 was one of the most expensive, viciously fought, dramatic actions in American labor history. But it was also one battle in a larger and far more important war over the future of the American workplace, one episode in an economic, social, and moral revolution changing the lives of tens of millions of working Americans as the thrilling, painful post-industrial rebirth of the American economy radically restructures relations between employer and employee, labor and management. In this brave new economy how can managers bent on rebuilding the work ethic of failing firms avoid war in the workplace? How can we protect workers without crippling the productivity of post-industrial factories? How we resolve these battles "will largely determine how productive our workplaces will be, how happy and prosperous their workers and their families, and the social and moral character of this society," says Richard Vigilante. With the power of an intellectual blockbuster and the punch of a great novel, Strike transforms a labor conflict of epic proportions into a guide to the future of the American workplace and the urgent needs of a new economic era. Strike is a must read for anyone concerned for the renaissance of American industry or the future of American labor.

A regular columnist for New York Newsday provides a riveting, close-up view, battle-by-battle, of the long, brutal strike at the New York Daily News and its challenging implications for our future.

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Editorials

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly

Vigilante, editorial director of the Center for Social Thought, combines solid, detailed reporting with less firmly grounded analysis in this ambitious, absorbing book. In covering the ugly five-month strike in 1990-1991 at the Tribune Co.'s New York Daily News , Vigilante ably describes union excesses--with many men paid not to work, employee compensation was 30% higher than industry scale--and sketches the negotiators, including union adviser Theodore Kheel and super-tough management lawyer Bob Ballow. Because reporters joined the strike of craft unions, the workers gained press sympathy, while union intimidation of newsdealers was shrugged at. The strike ended with the paper's purchase by Robert Maxwell; within days of Maxwell's death the following November, the paper was in Chapter 11, and was later sold to Mortimer Zuckerman. Vigilante undermines his reporting with expressions of his fervent belief in the value of self-reliance that don't acknowledge the varied realities of the American workplace. (July)

Library Journal

The Daily News had the top newspaper circulation in New York City in October 1990. By March 1991, its owners, Tribune Company, had paid Robert Maxwell $60 million just to get rid of it. The reason: a devastating, nearly five-month strike chronicled here by Vigilante, a columnist for New York Newsday. He provides an exhaustive analysis of why the strike happened and what it means not only for the newspaper industry but the entire American labor movement. He is critical of both unions and management, though his focus is on labor and how a unionized workforce can survive in the era of Total Quality Management. For a more newspaper-oriented view, see the strike chapter in former Tribune Company editor James D. Squires's Read All About It!: The Corporate Takeover of America's Newspapers (LJ 1/93). Recommended for media and labor collections.-Bruce Rosenstein, "USA Today" Lib., Arlington, Va.

David Rouse

Vigilante, editorial director at the Center for Social Thought and a "New York Newsday" columnist, uses the story of the bitter, protracted strike in 1990 against New York's "Daily News" and the "Chicago Tribune" both to question the role of unions in American society and to make his case that we need a strong but different kind of union today to keep a check on corporations. The costly, violent strike reflected many of the problems and dilemmas of modern life, and Vigilante vividly but objectively reports them: violence, organized crime, media objectivity, greed and corruption, corporate power, technology in the workplace, etc. Ultimately, the essence of the battle boiled down to the question of who will have a say in what work itself will be like in the future. Clearly, Vigilante believes that say should not rest with any one group or interest.