NEW YORK (AFX) - Bertram A. Powers, a former head of New York's newspaper printers' union who led a 16-week strike that paralyzed the city's daily newspapers in the early 1960s, has died. He was 84.
Powers, who led New York's Local 6 of the International Typographical Union for 29 years until his retirement in the mid-1990s, died of pneumonia in Washington, D.C., on Saturday, said his son, Brian A. Powers.
Powers called the union's first strike in 88 years against New York's eight daily newspapers in December 1962 over demands for higher wages and a contract to expire at all papers at the same time.
The walkout shut down four papers, led to a lockout at four others and affected 20,000 employees before a settlement ended it on April 1, 1963, and landed Powers on the cover of TIME magazine.
Over the next five years, four of New York's dailies went out of business or were combined and Powers' critics blamed the strike. But he argued it had less to do with the strike than with the 'national phenomenon of newspaper consolidation and attrition,' Brian Powers said.
In 1974, Powers negotiated a 10-year contract that assured his members' lifetime employment and other job protections as newspapers converted printing from lead castings to 'cold type,' or computerized pages.
Powers was born in Cambridge, Mass. in 1922. He left school after the 10th grade and worked for the government's Civilian Conservation Corps. He was hit by a truck in 1937, leaving him with a permanent limp.
His wife, writer and college professor Patricia Powers, died in 1988. He lived in New York until nine weeks ago, when he moved for health reasons to Washington to be near his family.
Besides Brian of Washington, he is survived by son Kevin Powers, of Buffalo, N.Y.; daughters Patricia Inciardi, of Movato, Calif., and Moya Keating, of Chatham, N.J.; three sisters and nine grandchildren.
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