Typographical Union Strike in Grand Junction, Colorado

Description

A strike of the Typographical Union protesting the lack of a signed contract with The Daily Sentinel newspaper. The strike was not concerned with wages. Rather, the Union insisted that The Daily Sentinel agree to union control of the Composing Room, following what some who worked there saw as meddling from publisher Preston Walker and the Advertising Department of the newspaper. According to Mesa County Oral History Project interviewee Robert Eugene Grant, the union brought in a mediator to resolve the strike, but the mediator and Daily Sentinel publisher Preston Walker butted heads, and the strike lacked a resolution. The strike was called on August 10, 1956 at 8 pm. Walker and the mediator met several times in the week following in an attempt to resolve the issues underlying the strike. In the meantime, the Sentinel's department heads and departments that did not join the strike worked together all day and night to put out the paper. The Sentinel also brought in scabs from Kansas City, and people who ran mom and pop newspapers from the surrounding area. Preston Walker refused to budge, and the union did not succeed in getting its demands met. However, Sentinel owner and father of Preston Walker, Walter Walker, died soon after as the result of what many considered heartbreak and distress over the strike. Walker was a lifelong Democrat and had always been known as a friend to labor. He felt betrayed by the union's strike.