Public Employee Press

Snapshots

PEP editor retires

Bill Schleicher, who began his career with DC 37 as an associate editor for the union's Public Employee Press, has retired. He started working for the city in 1965 as a caseworker then supervisor for the Welfare Dept. and participated in the historic strike waged by SSEU Local 371 that won collective bargaining rights for social workers.

He was hired by DC 37 as an associate editor on Oct. 14, 1969, a date he'll always remember. "That was the first game of the World Series at Shea Stadium between the Mets and the Orioles and I had tickets," Schleicher recalled.

As a union reporter Schleicher went undercover for a story about the New York Times. The paper had run an article with pictures of city workers sleeping on the job so he wanted to takes pictures of their staff sleeping on their shifts. "I got arrested," he remembers. When the paper demanded he turn over the film from his camera he gave them a blank roll. Articles he wrote about the poor state of the city's bridges and hospitals caught the attention of the daily newspapers and helped steer more funding for their repair and maintenance. "We really went after the city for their incompetence," he said of the paper's mission. He was later appointed the paper's editor, a position he occupied until his retirement.

A native of Buffalo, during the 1960s Schleicher became an activist and spent a year in Tennessee organizing voter registration campaigns with the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee.

He plans to spend more time with his two grandchildren, learn Spanish, catch a few Met games and walk the occasional picket line.

— Alfredo Alvarado