The Committee

In 1976, following years of harsh cutbacks to salaries and benefits at the New Yorker, editorial workers-the fact-checkers, copy editors, and other paraliteraries-finally took a stand and began a drive to unionize the storied magazine. But strong-willed longtime editor William Shawn's fierce resistance to unionization kicked off a stalemate between management and their subordinates. Daniel Menaker, author of the acclaimed My Mistake and former fiction editor of the...
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In 1976, following years of harsh cutbacks to salaries and benefits at the New Yorker, editorial workers-the fact-checkers, copy editors, and other paraliteraries-finally took a stand and began a drive to unionize the storied magazine. But strong-willed longtime editor William Shawn's fierce resistance to unionization kicked off a stalemate between management and their subordinates. Daniel Menaker, author of the acclaimed My Mistake and former fiction editor of the New Yorker and executive editor in chief of Random House, documents that conflict through humorous personal recollections and previously unpublished letters by Shawn himself, providing a revelatory window into the mind of one of the great editors of our time. The Committee, which previously appeared in n+1, is a story of hypocrisy, outrage, courage, cowardice, and dental benefits-all within the offices of the world's greatest magazine.