Guild Weathers Power Outage, Meeting With Mgmt. Now

A snippet from the latest Newspaper Guild memo, sent this morning at quarter-to-nine:

Sorry we couldn’t communicate with you earlier today. A power outage crashed the Guild’s computer server.

In another development last night, Guild President Henry J. Holcomb addressed AFSCME District Council 47. At the end of his remarks, the council voted unanimously to strongly support the Guild in its bargaining and, if necessary, in a strike.

Thomas Paine Cronin, president of the government employees union council, also spoke for the Guild, saying that his group would not stand by and let the new owners of our newspapers hire scab workers.

Blah blah blah. The meeting was scheduled to begin at noon, so presumably they’re meeting now and discussing whether Tierney can fire the old people at the paper. (Management says yes, the union says no!) Full memo after the jump.

Bargaining team working hard with mediator; Talks with company set for noon

Sorry we couldn’t communicate with you earlier today. A power outage crashed the Guild’s computer server.

At 8 a.m., your bargaining team resumed work with the federal mediator. We worked Thursday night until the mediator sent us home for rest at 11:41 p.m. The committee, chaired by Diane Mastrull, is scheduled to meet again with the management at noon. Major issues remain unresolved.

We’ll keep you posted as the day unfolds. We have a lot of work to do. As long as we’re making progress, we’ll keep talking and delay plans to go on strike. So keep working. Even though we have passed the expiration, the key provisions of our contract remain in force.

In another development last night, Guild President Henry J. Holcomb addressed AFSCME District Council 47. At the end of his remarks, the council voted unanimously to strongly support the Guild in its bargaining and, if necessary, in a strike.

Thomas Paine Cronin, president of the government employees union council, also spoke for the Guild, saying that his group would not stand by and let the new owners of our newspapers hire scab workers.