Noting that the employment practices of both large and small newspapers are changing as a result of automation, this paper deals with how automation is affecting the industry employment picture in general and the union employment picture in particular, how the changing employment picture is altering the industry's economic condition, and how management and labor are responding to employment changes brought about by automation. Projections made by the paper include: (1) a continuing loss of craft union membership, (2) diminishing bargaining strength among the various unions associated with newspapers, (3) growing interest among individual unions in merger into one industry-wide union, (4) increasing economic advantage to publishers through substitution of automation for employees, (5) decreasing percentage of operating budgets devoted to wages, and (6) increasing wage differentials between editorial and production workers. (FL)