Deal Approved; Management Returns To Private Islands

Last night, the Newspaper Guild ratified its new agreement, 498-69, ensuring no work stoppages ’til late 2009. Although the agreement passed, the Guild decided to also issue a vote of “No confidence” on management’s commitment to producing quality newspapers.

From Steve Volk’s The Daily Strike blog:

That motion “instructs the Local 10 Executive Board to discuss - and pass — a resolution saying the following:

“1- Because of their tight-fisted, slash-and-burn, anti-labor tactics, we have NO CONFIDENCE in the new owners’ actual desire to publish great newspapers

“2- Because of the new owners’ recent record of poor business decisions, which includes hiring executives while promising layoffs of union workers, we have NO FAITH in their desire to treat employees with fairness and dignity

“3- Because of the yawning chasm between what the new owners promised and what they now are delivering, we have NO STOMACH to hear any more of their cheerful prattle.

“For the new owners we have
“No Confidence,
“No Faith,
“No Stomach.”

An amendment, which was accepted, asked that the new owners be mentioned by name.

Afterward, the union workers returned to the offices with a ralling cry of, “Okay, now let’s go put out a crappy product for owners we hate!”

No Confidence, No Faith, No Stomach [The Daily Strike]
Archives: Guild Accidentally Sends Out Parody Memo, Stops Short Of Saying Tierney Is Sending Them Into Mines Sans Canaries

Update: Contract Vote Tonight

Just in case you are still thinking about all of this, the Newspaper Guild will vote on the contract with management tonight.

Despite telling their employees that management will be eating buckets of puppies with the profits from the new deal, Guild leadership has also encouraged a “yes” vote.

It’s good that there’s no strike — who would I make fun of? — but it also seems like some sort of unfulfilled promise; all these weeks and weeks of nasty memos back and forth and then… nothing. But who roots for people to lose their jobs (or walk off them)? I guess this shitty ending will have to do.

And, finally, by tonight everything will be over and we all never, ever, ever have to think about pension plans or seniority again. The Guild will, though, since the deal’s only three years.

The Daily Strike [PW]
Archives: Newspaper Guild
Archives: Newspaper Strike

Reason #19 To Love Philadelphia: We Don’t Have To Hear About Newspaper Contract Negotiations Anymore!

Last night, the Newspaper Guild reached a tentative agreement with management.

It’s a three-year deal — hey, just like Adam Eaton! — without much in the way of pay increases. (It doesn’t even look like there are any cost of living adjustments.) The company looks like it got pretty much what it wanted in turning the pension plan into a 401(k).

But, hey, Will Bunch was so excited he used eight exclamation points. So maybe it’s a good deal after all.

More Details on Deal… [Daily Strike]
UPDATED: Deal or no deal? DEAL!!!!!!!! [Attytood]

Byko Sends New Memo; Negotiations To Start In 5

Okay, back to strike talk! Or, rather, lack of strike talk.

In today’s Inquirer, Joseph DiStefano writes about Brian Tierney’s “surpris to the Guild’s reaction to the pension plan shift. (Management wants to freeze the pension fund and switch to a 401(k). The Guild is opposed to it.)

There’s a new memo after the jump in response to that, but the real fun is over at Steve Volk’s The Daily Strike, which will still be covering the negotiations, set to begin today at 10 a.m. Head over there for coverage and the like.

More »

Guild Delays Strike Yet Again; Philadelphians To Get Sunday ‘Hagar The Horrible’ Fix (Phew!)

Last night, the Guild sent out yet another memo to the workers, saying, well… no strike. For now. Wait, I thought we did this last week?

HANG IN THERE

Federal Mediator Walter Bednarczyk said today that he would call back the Guild and the Company to face-to-face bargaining Monday to discuss pension issues.

He strongly suggested that neither party take any action at this time.

The Company wants to freeze the pension fund and take full control of our fund away from the joint board of trustees.

The union plans to work with its experts through the weekend to come up with a counter proposal.

(Translation: No work stoppage)

Same old, same old! Come back here next week for virtually the same post.

Tierney Sends New Memo, Punctuation And Grammar Much Improved. I’ll Give It A B/B-.

Brian Tierney, who we last saw channeling Hemingway in a letter to State Rep. Mark B. Cohen, has sent out a new memo to the guild, urging for calm, peace, no strike and unity! (It remains to be seen if his definition of being a uniter, not a divider, is the same one as G.W. Bush.)

An excerpt:

What we are proposing is in line with most other companies, both in the media business and other businesses. Ask your friends and neighbors what their companies are doing. [...]

Will this proposal cost everyone a little more? Perhaps. But it is critically important for everyone to understand how difficult the newspaper business has become. You can look all over the country for examples. We simply can no longer afford the very generous pay and benefits of a bygone era, when newspapers dominated the media. We would much prefer for everyone to share a little bit in the pain, so that we can spare perhaps dozens of our colleagues from losing their jobs altogether.

If you’re as confused as I am, here’s the deal: Tierney is talking about the pension fund, and what management… wants… agh! I can’t do it! I can’t write about pension funds! And I like financial news and numbers and I could, at one time, do integrate and derive and even do a little vector calculus. (That didn’t stop me from getting a C in Calc II, but, hey, you take what you can get.)

Anyway, Steve Volk has much more of a stomach for this than I do, and he’s continuing to blog over at The Daily Strike.

Update: Byko and the Guild respond!

Skipping over the self-serving blather, Brian Tierney writes (on Page 2) that “we are all in this together” — except when it comes to directing the investments of our pension fund.

That’s when it becomes “me,” not “we.”

We have a problem with that for one simple reason: It’s OUR money, put there for US by Knight-Ridder. It is not Brian’s money to invest. The fund is both safe and healthy.

Blah blah blah etc. You know the deal with these things. The rest of the Tierney memo is still after the jump.

More »

Breaking: Strike?!

You have got to be kidding me. Or, well, not really, but… yeah. Looked like it was all settled, but all of a sudden…

“I am distressed to learn that on this point the company is stuck on stupid,” says Stu Bykofky.

The sticking point is the pension fund, and… ugh, back to the Guild:

The Guild negotiating team told the Company it would go into a multi-employer pension fund, but it would not relinquish its place in the decision making process.

Under the Guild plan, the pension trustees – composed of an equal number of representatives from the Company and the union – would seek a suitable multi-employer pension fund to merge into. If the sides could not agree on a fund, they would go into arbitration.

It is essential for both sides to be involved, to keep the process moving quickly and to protect OUR RETIREMENT SAVINGS.

“This is a damn sad situation,” said Guild President Henry J. Holcomb. “The Company’s position threatens to undo all of the good work we have done and put us on strike.”

Because this is the most serious of our strike issues, members should please take home their personal items from work and await instructions on other actions.

More on this tomorrow. And, of course, Fox 29 just reported a deal was near. And, also, lots and lots more info from Steve Volk over at The Daily Strike.

Update: Oh, yeah, and the Phillies got Freddy Garcia for Gavin Floyd and Gio Gonzalez.

Citizen Tierney, Internet Mayor Clash

As you may have heard already, the Newspaper Guild and management have reached a tentative agreement on non-economic issues, and won’t be striking anytime soon. (Cue long exhales from Byko et al.)

The two sides still have yet to reach an agreement on pensions, but it appears there won’t be a strike. (The photos of myself will return to the newsroom.) Steve Volk is still blogging at The Daily Strike, in case you want to catch up.

But just when you thought that the denouement could somehow be more boring than actual negotiations, who steps in but the Mayor of the Internet, State Rep. Mark B. Cohen!

Cohen sent a letter to management supporting the Newspaper Guild. Dissection of the memo — and Brian Tierney’s incredible sentence — after the jump.

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Leftovers: Breakin’ Up The Strike

• Brian Tierney has criticised the Newspaper Guild for threatening to strike, etc., etc. And, la de dah, they will be publishing in the advent of a strike. Time to find some old-fashioned strikebreakers! [E&P]

• What, Editor & Publisher’s Joe Strupp isn’t enough strikey goodness for you? Fine, here are some more thoughts. [Citizen Mom]

• In addition to free booze, Pennsylvanians are now required to put their headlights on when using their windshield wipers. You’re still not allowed to stock up on free drinks at the casinos and go driving, even if you used your headlines headlights and windshield wipers. [AP/NBC 10]

Yes, But Will Organized Labor Still Change Forever?

The Evening Bulletin ran an editorial — I assume — today about the newspaper strike. Here it is, in full:

Social change is not linear. Although we like to think of history as a gradual progression, real change happens in dramatic shifts, or “tipping points”. The pending strike by editorial employees at the Philadelphia Inquirer and Daily News marks one of these momentous changes. As we go to press, the editorial employees at the Inquirer are preparing to strike. The unions representing the majority of employees, who actually print and deliver the newspapers, had reached tentative agreements with management and stated “We think a strike is really going to hurt us. We’re going to go to work,” even going so far as to say they would cross picket lines. Say it any way you want, the history of organized labor in the newspaper business just changed.

Strikes are an imperfect mechanism for resolving labor disputes. But then, unions themselves have been in the process of engineering their own demise for decades. Having devolved from their original role of protecting the collective well-being of their members, they now most closely resemble the classic communist state on the edge of collapse. Inherent inefficiencies have made this end inevitable from the beginning. One way or another, a rational model for the industry will emerge.

Yep, say it any way you want, the history of organized labor in the newspaper business just changed. Except that, well, it didn’t. Looks like Soviet Russia’s still alive and well!

Newspaper Industry Will Change Forever [The Evening Bulletin via promohthree]