Press: Return of the Thunderer

The London Times settles a yearlong dispute

A cartoon in a London paper some months ago showed two Colonel Blimp characters chatting at their London club. ''Have you noticed,'' asked one, ''that no one's died since the Times stopped publishing?'' Clubmen and other notables can start expiring again, confident that their passing will not go unnoticed. The Times of London—founded in 1785, known fondly as ''the Thunderer'' for its once imperious editorials, and for years the bulletin board of the British Establishment—will reappear in mid-November along with its sister Sunday Times after the longest and costliest labor dispute in Fleet Street history.

The internationally respected newspapers came within a hairbreadth of dying themselves. Exasperated by chronic featherbedding and wildcat disruptions, the Toronto-based Thomson Organization, owner of the newspapers, suspended publication last Nov. 30. Thomson executives felt they could force the anarchic print unions into line within several months, at the outside, but they underestimated the complexity of the task and the resiliency of their adversaries. A final agreement was not reached until last week, just hours before the deadline Times Newspapers Ltd. Managing Director Marmaduke Hussey had implicitly set for closing the papers for good.

Management emerged from the rancorous showdown with significant manning reductions (an estimated 600 of 4,300 employees will be phased out), the right to introduce some laborsaving new technology, and a promised end to unauthorized work stoppages. Production was interrupted 74 times in 1978 alone, costing the papers $5.6 million. In return, the unions were given generous severance payments (an average of $26,000 per worker), better wages (up between 20% and 45% over two years), an extra week's vacation (for a total of six) and substantially improved pension and sick-pay formulas.

The National Graphical Association, which represents 600 compositors, machine managers and stereotypers, staved off management's centerpiece demand: that journalists and classified ad takers be allowed to operate the keyboards of computer typesetting equipment. That issue is to be discussed further over the next year, with no guarantee that the NGA will let anybody else use the new machines. Said NGA President Les Dixon: "Our boys will do it. They've been training to do it."

Much of Fleet Street felt the Times had taken a dreadful drubbing. The Daily Mail suggested that the final deal could have been secured without "this magnificent yet monumentally ill-thought-out charge of the Times management light brigade." Rivals were also concerned that the Times's largesse would lead to exorbitant demands by their own employees.