Aligned with the RMA were the Oakland City Council and the powerful Oakland Tribune newspaper, headed by its wealthy antilabor owner, Joseph Knowland. The publisher, whose son was a U.S. senator, treated Oakland as his personal kingdom, in much the same way that Harrison Gray Otis, owner of the Los Angeles Times, had done in that city in the early 1900s. The nine-member Oakland City Council had long been filled with Knowland allies. His control extended into all levels of Oakland city government. Knowland’s Tribune provided the RMA with one-sided news coverage of the dispute with its members’ employees. Utilizing an antiunion tactic spreading rapidly in the postwar era, Knowland’s editorials claimed that “Communists” were behind the strike.