The Press: Filling the Inkless Void

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Not so, say the New York publishers. They complain that the 1923 requirements are outmoded, that the pressmen's salaries have risen far faster than the speed of the presses and that newspapers in 143 other cities have found it possible to get by with manning levels half of what they are in New York. The publishers have thus proposed reducing the number of pressroom jobs in the city from 1,593 to roughly 800. That would eventually save about $2 million a year each at the News and the Times, and about half that at the smaller Post.

Not that any of the papers are in danger of folding if they lose; only the Post is said to be losing money, but industry insiders doubt that Publisher Murdoch is about to abandon the paper, which he bought 21 months ago.

The pressmen are hardly underpaid. A journeyman's straight-time wage is $361 a week, but a truer average is more than $500 after overtime and a lucrative form of "double-dipping." Arcane work rules in the pressroom allow some workers to put in a few hours at one newspaper (for a full day's pay) and then dash over to work another shift at a competing daily. At the News, about half of the 600 regular pressmen last year made more than $25,000 even before any such moonlighting, and 19 of them topped $35,000.

To be sure, a working pressroom is no rest home. The noise is so intense that communication is often possible only by hand signals: the air is so thick with ink mist and other impurities that some pressmen wear long underwear in the dead of summer to protect their skin. Though many pressmen work only 6% hours a day and some as little as two hours, they insist that scrubbing off pressroom grime can take hours more. They also complain that the hulking, screeching presses take a fearful toll in lost fingers and other injuries. Medical studies are either incomplete or inconclusive, but some researchers suspect that pressmen suffer higher than normal rates of hearing loss, lung cancer and emphysema. New York's pressmen tend to be relatively old (average age: 47), minimally educated and entrenched in their calling. It currently takes more than 20 years of service to move from the entry-level rank of apprentice (or "flyboy" as pressmen call it) to journeyman.

Moreover, theirs is a vanishing breed.

After winning automation agreements that curbed other production unions, newspaper managements across the country are finally cracking down on the pressmen. The union has been forced to accept reduced manning in San Francisco and Atlanta, and its members have been replaced by nonunion pressmen in Dallas, Kansas City, Mo., and Madison, Wis. The Washington Post's success in expelling the pressmen's union after a 1975 dispute is believed to have encouraged the New York publishers.