10 Injured, 35 Arrested at Rally of Chicago Newspaper Strikers

Police on horseback quelled violence at a rally Saturday by striking unions outside the Chicago Tribune printing plant, where 10 people suffered minor injuries and 35 were arrested.

Those injured suffered cuts and scrapes after being hit by rocks and were taken to hospitals, police said. The injuries were believed to be minor.

Twenty-six of those arrested were charged with disorderly conduct after violence broke out in the morning, Deputy Police Chief Leroy Martin said. Nine others were arrested by Saturday afternoon, police spokesman Tom Cunningham said.

Mounted police quickly brought Saturday morning’s crowd outside the plant under control, City Attorney Dan Welter said. Some people in the crowd, which Martin estimated at “a couple of thousand,” threw rocks at delivery trucks.

Tony Palucci, a striking mailer who was hit above the right eye by a brick, said the violence began when strikers tried to block the trucks and police moved in.

“The horses spread the people out, and that’s when the bricks flew,” Palucci said. “A few people got stepped on by horses.”

At least 100 tactical officers from police districts around the city were at the rally, Martin said.

At its mid-morning peak, the rally had drawn about 10,000 members of other unions representing firefighters, steel workers, airline pilots, hotel and restaurant workers and other industries.

The Chicago Typographical Union No. 16, Chicago Web Printing Pressman’s Union No. 7 and Chicago Mailers Union No. 2 have been on strike since July 18. The Tribune has continued to publish, using mostly workers brought in from outside the city. The central issue in the labor dispute is how much the unions can control specific job assignments of employees.