If Charlie is going to stick it to you, he'll punch you in the face, but he won't stab you in the back," says an admiring associate of Charles Brumback, chief executive of Chicago's Tribune Co. Either way, Brumback is a heavyweight champion of union busting. Five years ago, the Tribune declared war on its organized labor and, after a bitter strike, effectively broke it. Last week Brumback's company was locked in an even fiercer and more far-reaching strike by nine unions, which management had done its share to provoke, at the media giant's troubled New York Daily News.
For organized...