Exporting jobs: It's not just for cars and clothes any more

Here's the latest scary trend in journalism. But it's not the only reason to be concerned about the future of newspaper jobs. As industry consolidation and cost-cutting efforts lead newsrooms to slice staffs, the international Guild has declared Dec. 11 a day to stand up for journalism.

Mile-High Blog End

Hello all,

Here's a last shot from Denver, with the best-read, best-traveled newsletter around.

See you soon,

Jennie and Jerry

Mile-High Blog III

News flash!
Milwaukee Local 51 President Jennie Tunkieicz has been elected president of the Midwest District Council. Janet Ortega, president of the Sheboygan local, was elected vice president. Laurie Faliano of the Denver local was elected secretary. Mike Ulreich of the Chicago local was re-elected treasurer.

Also during the afternoon session of the Midwest District Council meeting of The Newspaper Guild in Denver some notes for across the Midwest:
From St. Louis: Local 36047 did a survey of members and 478 responded. The big concern? Surprise: health care. Also, 89% of those surveyed said they do not trust management. A photographer at the St. Louis Post Dispatch got a three-day suspension and was ordered to reimburse the company for $9,000 in photo equipment stolen from his car. The photo editor earlier had directed staff to sign a form that they would agree to these conditions but the guild was never informed. It appears that the matter will be resolved in the favor of the photographer.
From Sheboygan: Local President Janet Ortega said the 50-member union has a tentative agreement with Gannett and will vote on it on Wednesday after four years of sometimes acrimonious talks. She said the union gave up a lot but is still intact. They gave up stepped wage increases and now get only merit pay. They gave up the eight-hour work day (meaning no overtime until after 10 hours of work in a day). The new contract includes pay cuts for advertising personnel and an open shop.
From Minneapolis-St. Paul: Supposedly a two-page a day reduction in newshole is coming in order to cut costs at the St. Paul Pioneer Press, according to Bill Weyandt, secretary of the St. Paul local. He sees this as one of the results of the dissolution of former owner Knight Ridder and the acquisition by the Hearst organization on the way to being acquired by Media News. Other instability related to the sale includes the company not turning over union dues or telling new hires that they will have to pay dues. Also looming is a pension shortfall estimated at up to $22 million. “We have grievances upon grievances,” Weyandt said. He said there are somewhere in the neighborhood of 35 grievances pending at the paper.
From Kenosha: Pretty quiet except for the possibility of job cuts at a small unit of the local, the Labor Paper.
From Peoria: The local found out two weeks ago that the paper is up for sale by Copley newspapers. Also up for sale are six small papers in Ohio and Illinois.
From Denver: Shrinking membership because of the joint operating agreement is a concern. There were also recent layoffs and more may be on the way.

Mile-High Blog II

During the Saturday morning session of The Newpaper Guild's Midwest District Council meeting, TNG Secretary-Treasurer Bernie Lunzer also talked about problems locals are facing in such places as San Jose, a former Knight Ridder paper, where everything has been put on the board by the paper’s new owner Dean Singleton. Wages, pension and even jurisdiction. Singleton wants to use lots of free lancers and material from other sources, Lunzer said. He wants to dump the pension entirely, according to Lunzer. There is talk of 150 layoffs, including 65 in the newsroom (consider: San Jose had 900 members 10 years ago, Lunzer said, and now has 500).
And then there’s Toledo, “an ideological dance of death,” as Lunzer describes it, as management and the union local vortex into increasingly grim tactics, with 25% of the staff locked out and 21 of 22 car advertisers withholding advertising.
At another Block paper, Pittsburgh, the union local is trying to help management find deep cuts.
Good news? In Pittsburgh, an interplant council of unions may be one of the last of its kind, effectively letting a group of unions exert a combined power.
“The good news is that people are still fighting really hard,” Lunzer said. Management in many cases realizes that they still must deal with unions down the road. Organizing will be a major tool, Lunzer said, especially in places like California, where organizing in surrounding papers can help put pressure on San Jose’s new management.
More to come.

The Mile-High Blog

9:30 a.m. MST.

Welcome to the Midwest District Council meeting of The Newpaper Guild. Denver. Sunny. 50s and out of Milwaukee just in time to beat that heavy wet stuff that hit all of you.

Representatives from Denver, Peoria, Minneapolis, St. Paul, St. Louis, Milwaukee, Kenosha, Sheboygan and Milwaukee are in the first session this morning at the Denver Press Club. We're listening to Bernie Lunzer, secretary-treasurer of The Newspaper Guild as he explains talk about the sometimes dismal state of union-management relations across the country today.

Much of the chaos across the country is a result of the breakup of the Knight Ridder chain. In its wake, new owners are challenging stable, long-standing contracts and attendant benefits, such as pensions.

An electoral turnaround

If you worked election night, control of Congress and the Wisconsin Senate weren't the only turnarounds you needed to think about.

The Milwaukee Newspaper Guild's contract calls for a 10-hour turnaround between shifts. For many Journal Sentinel newsroom workers, that could mean extra money for working late Tuesday and coming back Wednesday morning.

Whenever you have less than 10 hours between the scheduled end of one shift and the actual start of the next one, you get overtime for the difference. If you have a day off in between, the turnaround should be at least 34 hours. Turnaround pay runs concurrently with overtime for working late; you don't get paid twice for the same hours.

For example, if you were scheduled to work until midnight Tuesday, and ...
-- You left at midnight and came back at 9 a.m. Wednesday: You had a 9-hour turnaround. You should get 1 hour of overtime.
-- You stayed until 1 a.m. and came back at 8 a.m.: You had a 7-hour turnaround. You should get 3 hours of overtime.
-- You stayed until 1:30 a.m. and came back at 10 a.m. Wednesday: You had an 8.5-hour turnaround. You should get 1.5 hours of overtime.
-- You stayed until 1:30 a.m. and came back later than 10 a.m. Wednesday: You still worked 1.5 hours of overtime, no matter what your turnaround was. You should get 1.5 hours of overtime.

As with regular overtime pay, you should fill out a yellow overtime card and give it to your supervisor to claim turnaround pay.

And since this was a night shift, don’t forget to file for night differential, too. That’s currently 70 cents an hour for straight time, $1.05 an hour for overtime -- $5.60 for a regular 8-hour shift, or $7.70 if you work two hours of OT. But you don’t have to do the math: call up the electronic differential form and it will do the math for you.

If you have any questions, please ask a Guild representative.

Coming soon: the Mile-High Blog

Tune in to the Milwaukee Newspaper Guild blog Friday, Saturday and Sunday for updates from the Midwest District Council meeting in Denver. Local 51 President Jennie Tunkieicz and First Vice President Jerry Ziegler will be attending.
We'll give you updates as the meeting progresses. The agenda includes a morning session by the district attorney's office in Denver on identity theft and an afternoon session by the Colorado Business Group on Health on new ways to look at health care costs.
We'll also share comments from other locals in the large Midwest District Council, which stretches from Lake Michigan to the Rockies.
Stay tuned and we'll keep you posted.