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Nov
29
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Another day, another memo from the Newspaper Guild. To recap: The contract between the Newspaper Guild, which represents nearly all the editorial employees of the Daily News and Inquirer, expires tomorrow at midnight. Although negotiations are going on now, it seems the Guild is preparing for a strike, after yesterday’s message to take home your personal belongings and this last night:
Your negotiators met through the recent holiday, Monday and yesterday with the mediator. The Company did not have time to meet with us Monday. They did not have time to meet with us Tuesday. As of this writing, we’re hoping to have face-to-face talks tomorrow.
Soon, you will be hearing from the strike team about your picket shifts.
If you have not sent in your strike benefits form, please do so.
Yep. It’s strike time. Full memo after the jump.
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dmac | 12:36 PM | 0 Comments
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Nov
28
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We’re just under three days away from the contract expiration between the Newspaper Guild and management of the Inquirer and Daily News, and it seems like the possibility of a strike is inching closer.
Memo just released from the Newspaper Guild:
Please remove personal items that you use or value from the workplace before our current contract expires at midnight Thursday, November 30. If a strike becomes necessary, you will not be allowed to enter the building to retrieve your belongings.
Ruh roh. Full memo after the jump.
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dmac | 12:53 PM | 2 Comments
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Nov
22
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In a press release last night, the Newspaper Guild, the union that represents a majority of the Daily News and Inquirer’s editorial employees, discusses what, exactly, management plans to do if there is a strike at the end of the month when the contract expires.
Steve Volk reports today that both sides are preparing for the worst, with 3,000 picket signs being ordered by the union and management offering “Great Temporary Opportunities” for “[p]hotographers, artists, image designers, copy editors, page designers, reporters and news assistants. Newspaper experience a plus! $17-$20/hour.” It doesn’t say what newspaper it is, but after a phone call it was revealed that it was at a newspaper whose employees could be striking come December. Take a guess.
The Guild adds this (emphasis mine):
A Guild member responded to the ad and got a company calling itself Strom Engineering. The Guild “job applicant” was told that the undisclosed company was a newspaper operation on the East Coast that “could be in Philly,” but Strom declined to be specific.
When the “job applicant” said he was interested in politics and would love to cover City Hall and government, but had no experience except for penning a few letters to the editor, he was told that may not be a problem. Send your resume along and we’ll try and take care of you, he was told.
When the caller said he had a couple friends looking for work too, including one who just got out of prison and was a great fighter, he was told to also have them send their resumes along, as there are no background checks.
If they got the job, the company is willing to pay reporters and other editorial employees an hourly rate based on a minimum 60-hour work week, with no benefits.
If there’s a strike, look for the Daily News to finally publish O.J. Simpsons’s If I Did It in serial form.
Full guild release after the jump.
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dmac | 11:02 AM | 103 Comments
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Nov
2
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Tuesday, Halloween night, Brian Tierney invited all his employees to the Kimmel Center for a Philly Pops concert. It was all part of his plan to improve morale without actually signing a new contract with the Newspaper Guild.
It being Halloween, Tierney arrived in a suit, then came back outside the Kimmel Center to greet union protesters in a Superman outfit. (Who knew the Kimmel Center had a phone booth?)
Fast forward to this morning, when Tierney is speaking at the Pennsylvania Newspapers Association, which is holding its convention in Philly. Someone has the hotel deliver a package to Tierney that he needs for his speech. What does Tierney get? A piece of kryptonite.
Cute, guys, but until you make a Scooby Doo parody video, the staffers in York are way ahead of you.
Yesterday: ‘Inquirer’, ‘Daily News’ Totally Need To Steal This Idea
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dmac | 2:54 PM | 0 Comments
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Nov
1
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While our fine city’s largest newspaper union is having its own problems with a contract, it’s not the only place in the state where a newspaper is having work problems.
Approximately 4500 miles — or that’s what it feels like — west of Philadelphia, writers at the York Daily Record have been working without a contract for over a year. It’s a complicated issue in York, which somehow is a two paper town and had a weird ownership-swapping deal of the Daily Record and the other paper, the Dispatch, a few years back.
Reporters can’t agree on a contract with MediaNews, which you may remember as one of the companies that was looking to buy the Inquirer and Daily News. The back-and-forth has been intense, as the reporters had a byline strike, and once it was over, management refused to put the bylines back. Workers were also forbidden from wearing clothing with the union logo on it, etc.
Anyway, the union shot back on a few days before Halloween, filming this video:
Seriously, this is a way to get the public in your side. Scooby freakin’ Doo! Only if they killed off Scrappy could this be a better propaganda video.
Guild’s Scooby Doo Protest Debuts on YouTube [E&P]
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dmac | 2:32 PM | 2 Comments
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