Crucial Strike Support Brings Victory

Bob Wartinger, vice president of the International Typographical Union (ITU), and Jersey City Typographical Union No. 94 President Stan Lempicki, met with CCI about a troubling nine-month strike with some 27 workers that showed no end in sight. The strike was the first ever by the local at the Scott Printing Co. in Jersey City, N.J. CCI hammered out a strategy for the union that turned the small group of strikers into pro-active campaigners and moved the strike beyond the picket line into the community.

The seemingly endless strike was settled soon thereafter. A front-page headline in the June 1983 edition of the ITU Review, the international union's newspaper, announced: "Scott strike over!"

The article stated, in part:

"Vice President Bob Wartinger, who joined No. 94 President Stan Lempicki, chapel chairman Joe Parascondola and committee member Phil DeParto in the negotiations, termed the 11-year contract 'an excellent long-term settlement.'

"Crucial in the strike effort was the ITU Executive Council's decision to authorize the 30-day use of the services of Corporate Campaign, Inc. of New York City, a labor consulting firm on the side of the unions. A strategy was developed with Wartinger's assistance. All participants had high praise for the effectiveness of this move, which, Lempicki said, was '"of tremendous help' in winning the strike."