Charles Perlik Dies, Long Time Guild President

Charles A. Perlik, Jr., the longest-serving president of The Newspaper Guild-CWA and an internationally recognized champion for journalists and human rights, died Sept. 17 of pulmonary failure at 84.

Among his achievements, he appointed a human rights coordinator to oversee a program to guarantee full employment opportunities to minorities and equal rights for women in the news industry. He also tried to involve the Guild in more legislative activity, designating a Guild representative to build support for labor law reform.

Perlik was a native of Pittsburgh who served as an Army Air Corps communications officer in Guam and the Philippines during World War II. He began his newspaper career as an $18-a-week copy carrier for what was called the Int'l News Service in 1941. After the war he worked for United Press in Pittsburgh and later Chicago

Perlik earned a bachelor's and master's degree in journalism from Northwestern University while working for United Press. At school, he served as chairman of the Chicago Guild's associate member chapter for journalism students.

After joining the Buffalo Evening News in 1950, he soon became chairman of the Buffalo Guild's organizing committee, and quickly organized two smaller newspapers. He was elected the local president in 1951. Just a year later, TNG appointed him as an international staff representative, working primarily in Canada.

He won his first national elective office in 1955, becoming the Guild's secretary-treasurer. He held the post until becoming president in 1969 and was re-elected six times.

Throughout his Guild presidency, Perlik was North American vice president of the International Federation of Journalists. He played a leading role in the IFJ's efforts to strengthen journalists' unions in developing countries.

He was also a human rights activist at home, attending the 1963 March on Washington and marching with the Rev. Martin Luther King in Birmingham and Selma, Ala. Years later, he and then-AFL-CIO secretary-treasurer Thomas  Donahue spent a night in the Washington, D.C., jail for picketing the South African embassy to protest apartheid.

Said TNG-CWA President Bernie Lunzer:  "Chuck Perlik in many ways formalized the modern Newspaper Guild, both in its international scope and the quality of contracts.  He'd be the first to tell you about all the help he got, but during his 30-plus years as an officer, it was his vision that kept the union strong."