AROUND THE MAP
Strike—with ukuleles
The first strike in Hawaii daily newspaper history began June 21, 1963. While the usual differences existed over wages, duration of contracts, welfare benefits, and other cost items, management and labor seemed to be most at odds over a rather esoteric issue—the publishers' desire to restore a two-day waiting period before sick-leave benefits went into effect. Despite management and union claims to the contrary, the strike ended inconclusively, on August 7, 1963, forty-six days after it began. In October the threat of a new walkout was raised by the printers' dissatisfaction with aspects of the memorandum of agreement, which ended the strike pending the signing of contracts.
The strike had affected the state's two largest daily newspapers: the morning Honolulu Advertiser and the afternoon Honolulu Star-Bulletin, as well as their jointly owned production facility—the Hawaii News Agency—and their separately owned commercial printing divisions. The Advertiser has a circulation of 100,000 and the Star-Bulletin's circulation is 62,000; their joint Sunday edition has 143,000.
The seven unions involved, representing more than 800 employees, included the International Longshoremen's and Warehousemen's Union (controlling some circulation department workers) and the Hawali Newspaper Guild, locals of the typographers, lithographers, pressmen, and photoengravers, and a one-man unit of the International Association of Machinists.
The strike virtually eliminated the regular daily newspaper from Hawaii. In Honolulu the only dailies to continue publishing were the bilingual Hawaii Times and Hawaii Hochi (each with a circulation of 12,000) who enlarged their English-language news sections but mostly remained written in Japanese. The only other daily newspaper in the state, the Hilo Tribune-Herald (also with a circulation of 12,000) published on the island of Hawaii 200 miles from Honolulu, put out a limited special "Honolulu edition" until distribution costs and other problems put an end to the operation.
Despite the length of the strike, an "aloha" atmosphere generally prevailed. Casually dressed men and women maintained picket lines around the midtown Advertiser-owned building that houses the newspapers, the two wire-service bureaus and radio station KGU. There was no violence. Many of the picketers strummed ukuleles, and sang and danced impromptu hulas, occasionally aided by a volunteer band of strolling musicians who were members of the striking unions. Editors who crossed the line waved and frequently chatted with pickets. The union's joint strike strategy committee (JSSC), which directed operations for the workers, got the nickname "jointthink." After the strike's end a company spokesman suggested that a more apt title would have been "jointsqueeze."
Although Hawaii radio and television are for the most part still in the rip-and-read stage of broadcast journalism, attempts were made at more sophisticated coverage during the strike. The editors of the struck papers participated in television round-table discussions and served as commentators regularly on "newspaper of the air" programs. Some other newsmen were also hired by the stations. One enterprising station, KTRG-TV, had its strike newsmen cull the AP wire early each morning and duplicate a twopage headline sheet for free distribution in restaurants. Henry Kaiser's KHUH radio and television stations did an exceptional job; they supplemented their news staffs by employing on a full-time basis
