In a demonstration of labor solidarity, 10 local unions currently engaged in joint collective bargaining with owners of the New York Daily News are standing together against an all-out attack by the employers.

The 3,500 workers, represented by the Allied Printing Trades Council, have already sought to ensure the newspaper's future by agreeing to give more than $100 million in employee concessions in previous bargaining. In return, the publisher pledged to purchase $300 million in new presses and equipment essential to the survival of the Daily News.

But as too often happens, the company has broken its word and is now asking for further employee give-backs. It has also hired two notorious union-busting law firms, recruited potential strikebreakers from Florida, and is training others at a plant in New Jersey.

With this clear indication that management fully expects that its demands will force a strike, the 10 unions have pledged to fight together for a fair and decent contract. The AFL-CIO has pledged its full support to the workers and their unions.

AFSCME welcomes this demonstration of solidarity as further evidence that the labor movement recognizes that in unity there is strength, and that workers must join to support their brothers and sisters whenever and wherever there is a fundamental attack on fair collective bargaining.

AFSCME pledges its support to the workers and their unions, and calls on its locals and councils to stand with them in the struggle to prevent the Tribune Company from destroying the collective bargaining process and to achieve a fair and honorable settlement.