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.