Several historians have urged the chair of the Schlesinger Library to use her influence within the Knight-Ridder Publishing company to end a year-long strike at the Detroit Free Press, a Knight-Ridder subsidiary.

Two weeks ago, 34 historians sent a public letter to Joan Ridder Challinor, chair of the Schlesinger Library on the History of Women and member of the board of directors of Knight Ridder, urging her to help settle the strike.

Workers at the Detroit Free Press went on strike more than 11 months ago. Over 2,000 workers are still on strike, protesting such changes as the institution of individual merit pay and a cap to overtime pay.

Although at points the newspapers had to be flown out by helicopter across the picketing workers, many of these workers at this point have been permanently replaced by non-strikers. This controversial labor practice has proven devastating to the union and the striking workers, but has allowed the company to stay afloat.

"[W]e ask [Challinor] to challenge the reigning orthodoxies of corporate America," the letter stated, "and persuade her peers at Knight-Ridder to equitably and expeditiously settle its dispute with the striking workers."

"We, her colleagues, urge Dr. Challinor to exhibit the same human impulse as a member of the board of Knight Ridder that she does at the Schlesinger Library," the letter concluded.

Alice Kessler-Harris, a history professor at Rutgers University, co-authored the letter with a Howard University professor, Eileen Boris.

Kessler-Harris said the letter was meant to appeal to Challinor's sympathies as an historian familiar with research on women and labor practices.

When asked about the strike, Challinor state emphatically: "I support the company fully."

She refused to comment further.

In response to the letter's assertion that historians have a special perspective which they should apply to political affairs, Dr. Challinor said of the authors, "I would not get into a conversation with those two people."

The letter was not meant to threaten Challinor, Kessler-Harris said, but simply to request that as a woman in a dual capacity, Challinor rethink the issues related to the strike.

Many issues involved in the strike particularly affect women, Kessler-Harris said. For example, she said, the institution of merit pay with no starting base wage not only undermines collective bargaining, but also has contributed historically to the abuse of women, who were particularly vulnerable to having pay withheld as a means of sexual harassment