Communications Strike Averted

Publisher Caves in to Union Demands

by

Lawrence Abbe Gauthier

ace reporter

The Westphalia Periodic News

Union demands that the name of the village’s only newspaper be changed yet again were reluctantly agreed to by the publisher during a tense bargaining session this past week.

Unions representing advertising, production and the editorial staff presented a unified front, threatening to strike unless the newspaper's name was changed from the Weekly News to the Periodic News.

The publisher argued that you can’t have a real newspaper with a name like that; that it has to be either a Weekly or a Daily. “With a name like Periodic, people will get nervous wondering when something’s going to happen,” he said. “They might act irrationally.”

The unions argued that hardly anything ever happens in the village, so it’s heartless to make everyone sit around the office all week just to put out a weekly newspaper about nothing, really, when they’ve got better things to do with their time.

To emphasize their determination, they imported a strike force of Socialist women from Milwaukee. “WOMEN OF THE WORLD UNITE,” they chanted beneath a banner of foreign origins. “We Have Nothing to Lose but Our Chains!”

“Men work here, too,” the publisher replied with feeble gestures.

“They’ve got nothing better to do!” the Socialist women from Milwaukee shot back.

The militaristic women had one final demand; that the subhead read:  "All the News that Fits Our Schedule.”