The New York newspaper strike of 1978 was the direct result of a series of events that started in 1923 when the pressmen's union established a system that provided a minimum fixed number of pressmen per press unit and legitimized a loose labor pool. From that time, the number of pressmen increased through family-dominated union management that loaded the presses with relatives and through union contracts that prevented publishers from changing labor practices and from establishing cost-efficient automated printing processes. Under the sponsorship of the Publishers Association, the three major New York papers, after instituting cutbacks in the pressroom labor force, went into a strike as a united front during the summer of 1978. In October, Rupert Murdock, owner of the "New York Post," who had used the strike for his own financial advancement, pulled his paper out of the strike and put together a separate settlement with the pressmen. With Murdock out of the negotiations, bargaining began in earnest. The November settlement assured that all pressmen would retain their jobs for the six-year life of the contract; however, the pressroom rolls will be reduced through the normal process of attrition and by substantial retirement initiatives provided by the publishers. (MAI)