Fifty years ago a Royal Examiner journalist led a nationwide strike against the world’s largest news service, AP: an exclusive retrospective

On January 8, 1969, as president of the Wire Service Guild, the union representing employees of The Associated Press, I stepped out from the foyer of 50 Rockefeller Plaza in New York City to lead a nationwide strike against the world’s largest and, arguably at that time, most influential news service.

It was the first, and to date the last, work stoppage against The Associated Press, which was founded in 1878.  And quite unexpectedly I became the point man for hundreds of journalists, photographers, and others in every state of the union who walked out with me on this memorable day in the winter of 1969.

I was 35 and had worked at the AP for about 10 years, in Honolulu and Washington, D.C., when I found myself, somewhat by accident, in the president’s chair of our Local 222 of the American Newspaper Guild (AFL-CIO). I had, indeed, run for the position in 1968 to secure “name recognition” for my future objective of leading the union, when the incumbent dropped from the running at the last moment, leaving an affirmative strike vote in my lap.

I quit the AP shortly after the 8-day strike ended, being offered a Capitol Hill post as press secretary to U.S. Senator Hiram L. Fong (R-Hawaii), and gave my so far unique experience little thought thereafter.

As the years rolled on toward the strike’s half-century anniversary, a couple of hitherto unknown to me former AP staff members, one in New Hampshire, the other in California, sent emails of reminder and asked for my recollections of the national work stoppage. Mine and other significant memories are, on this day (January 8), being published in union newspapers and in the AP retiree newsletter. My recollection leads a three-part series and describes the negotiations leading up to the strike and memories I had of walking the picket lines in Washington D.C. and New York City.

Malcolm Barr Sr., our correspondent, dons his 50-year-old strike placard. Photo/Roger Bianchini

Apart from welcome additions to our new contract which gave retirees better pension benefits, more time off, a reduced workweek for some, and an additional holiday for all, the only relic of the strike I had in my memory box was my strike placard (appearing here in a recent photo by colleague Roger Bianchini) that surprisingly, to me anyway, was requested by an AP archivist for the company’s historical collection in New York City. I have since mailed it out.

Among my personal recollections of the strike was striding out from AP headquarters adjacent to the Rockefeller Plaza skating rink and the New York City Christmas tree, with the temperature in the 20s and a slight snow falling. A much warmer memory was a welcome early call from a former colleague in Honolulu who reported that the entire staff of the Honolulu Star-Bulletin, one of my former employers, had respected his one-man picket line in the Hawaii sunshine!

Shortly thereafter a blue airmail letter arrived from my mother in England. She wanted to know “what I thought I was doing?”

“It’s all over, Mum,” I responded. “We won!”

(Malcolm Barr Sr., 85, has been a Royal Examiner contributing writer since its inception and began a career in journalism in the U.K. in 1949. He and his family retired to Front Royal in 2002.)