Union-Busting Coming to the S.F. Chronicle?

http://www.peaceandfreedom.org/Chronicle.shtml
UNION-BUSTING COMING TO THE S.F. CHRONICLE?

The Hearst Corporation announced appointment of a new publisher at the
San Francisco Chronicle whose main qualification is success in
union-busting in the Detroit newspaper industry. The Chronicle reported
in its December 18 edition the appointment of Frank J. Vega as the new
publisher, replacing Steven Falk who, according to a Hearst press
release, was "leaving the paper to pursue other interests" -- generally
a code phrase for getting fired.

Vega is coming to San Francisco from Detroit, where as president and CEO
of Detroit Newspapers, which under a joint operating agreement (similar
to that between the San Francisco Chronicle and the Examiner before
Hearst bought the Chronicle and sold the Examiner) sold advertising for,
and printed, the Detroit Free Press and Detroit News. His main
accomplishment was breaking the newspaper unions in Detroit on behalf of
both the Gannet and Knight Ridder chains, which operated both papers at
substantial losses during a protracted strike, refusing to bargain and
paying for the losses from the profits of other newspapers in the chains.

One of Vega's first announcements was that he "was not brought in to
oversee a strike." The very fact of this statement -- combined with his
history in Detroit -- makes clear that this is exactly why he was
brought in. At least if the Chronicle unions do not cave in and agree to
the cutbacks which he promises. And cutbacks and speed-up certainly are
what he pledges. In the interview for the story he states that "we have
to make some tough decisions about how to run the place" and that the
ppaper would have to "get on a productivity kick."

"It doesn't mean we're talking about any sort of layoffs," he is quoted
as saying, "it could be attrition." In other words, no matter how it is
accomplished, a cut-back in the workforce, which spells speed-up for
those remaining, is his goal. With the paper's contracts with its
unionized employees set to expire July 1, 2005, negotiatins with Vega at
the healm will soon begin. He earned the nickname "Darth Vega" among
Detroit newspaper workers. The Chronicle's article on its new publisher
quotes the chief of one "media consulting firm" praising Vega's tenure
in Detroit as "achieving overnight what would have taken 10 years for
[the papers] to get through negotiations."

The coming months will be key for workers' rights throughout the Bay
Area and Northern California. The San Francisco hotel lockout is on
hold, and it remains to be seen whether the cutbacks demanded by the
bosses (draconian even under the latest management proposals).
Negotiations in the Northern California supermarket industry are coming
to a head, with both the Sacramento Valley and Coastal areas working
without contracts in the face of bosses' demands for cutbacks. Now,
looming on the horizon, are cutbacks in staffing -- and probably in
other areas as well -- promised by the Chronicle's new publisher. We
urge everyone in the area to make clear to the Hearst Corporation as
well as to the supermarket giants that we stand by the workers in those
industries.

Let the bosses know that you know it: an injury to one is an injury to all.


More On Vega at

http://dbacon.igc.org/Unions/02ubust0.htm

Also

http://www.metrotimes.com/editorial/story.asp?id=1210

It was the perfect dramatic touch ‹ a summer storm packing high winds,
searing lightning and bone-rattling thunder. Perhaps the gods were
issuing omens ‹ perhaps not. But when six of the 11 unions representing
workers at the Detroit Free Press <http://www.freep.com> and the Detroit
News <http://www.detroitnews.com> took to the streets on July 13, 1995,
that day¹s storm marked the beginning of the longest, most divisive
labor conflict in modern Detroit history.

For the next five-and-a-half years, about 2,500 newspaper workers fought
hard against one monster of an opponent, created not by some Hollywood
special-effects department but by two gigantic corporations. And, unlike
in Hollywood, there was no happy ending for anyone. Detroit Newspapers ‹
owned by Gannett Co. and Knight Ridder, two of the world¹s largest
newspaper companies ‹ proved to be unbeatable, enduring what the
Christian Science Monitor called the longest, most expensive newspaper
strike in U.S. history.

Just before Christmas, the last two striking locals of the Metropolitan
Council of Newspaper Workers voted to accept contracts far poorer than
those they had walked away from that stormy day so long ago. The damage
was immense: Only a third of the former strikers returned to their old
jobs; the rest have either moved away, found other jobs, retired, been
fired or died. And those who are back at work are often making less
money and now labor in an open shop, where union membership is no longer
required.

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For those seeking more balance between corporate and workers¹ power, the
lessons of The Great Detroit Newspaper Strike are daunting.

³I think we were sort of caught up in a time warp of traditional
newspaper strikes,² says Norm Sinclair, a veteran, award-winning News
reporter. Sinclair co-edited the union strike paper, the Sunday Journal,
for most of the 33 months he was either out on strike or waiting to be
called back after the unions offered to return to work in February 1997.
³It used to be that if you picketed, had an effective advertisers and
readers boycott, the papers would come to the table and settle. The
problem is, these are 21st century newspapers.²

These new media giants have at their disposal endlessly deep pockets,
picket line-penetrating computers and barricade-hopping helicopters;
squads of editors and reporters from other papers ready to step in;
scads of journalism school grads hot for a job, any job; reams of
digital wire copy and photos ready to bulk up a paper with a single
mouse click. Given how much the business has changed, the union¹s
strategy was flawed from the beginning; but even that does not
completely explain what happened, or what needs to be learned.

For, as Susan Watson, the former and now fired Free Press columnist who
co-edited the Sunday Journal maintains, ³Technically, we won.²

Watson means that, after long deliberations, the National Labor
Relations Board (NLRB) ‹ three Democrats and two Republicans ‹
unanimously declared in September 1998 that Detroit Newspapers was
guilty of unfair labor practices during negotiations before the strike.
Therefore the papers were to rehire all strikers and pay them back
wages. For a while it seemed as if the unions had won.

But heartbreak struck union members when the decision did not stick.
Last July, a three-judge panel of the District of Columbia Federal Court
of Appeals ‹ Reagan appointees all ‹ unanimously reversed the NLRB and
put the handwriting on the wall for all to see. Jeanette Bartz, who
worked in the News photo department for 15 years and who is now retired,
says the message she got from that decision was exactly the same one the
rest of the country got from Washington six months later about a certain
presidential election.

³I really feel that the courts are now highly politicized,² she says. ³I
suspected it, of course. But then when this Supreme Court made its
decision about Bush Š I¹m just overwhelmed now. I can¹t even imagine
respecting the courts again for a very long time. This is so blatant.²

William Gould IV, the veteran lawyer and mediator who chaired the NLRB
throughout most of the Detroit newspaper strike, agrees.

³I think there is a pattern between the two that can be compared,² he
says of the federal court decisions reversing the NLRB and handing the
presidential election to George W. Bush.

In the NLRB cases, he says, ³the Court of Appeals was ingenious in
looking for some sort of argument or fact that could disturb our
findings and conclusions. What the court did was extraordinary and
inexplicable on any grounds other than political philosophy.²

But the newspapers see nothing but vindication in the federal court¹s
reversal and seem to have expected it. That may be why Tim Kelleher,
senior vice president for labor relations at Detroit Newspapers, says he
remains confident that his company¹s strategy was the right one, even
after such havoc.

³I would approach it exactly the same way again, because it was the
right way to go,² he says of the company¹s tactics in the strike which
eventually cost it at the very least $100 million, a third of each
paper¹s readership, and much of each publication¹s quality, credibility
and good will.

³We have nothing to be ashamed of in our offers to the workers, or in
the way we conducted our bargaining,² he says of 1995¹s negotiations.
³Strikes serve nobody¹s interest. People have to realize that. It is the
absolute last resort and, frankly, both sides should do everything
possible to prevent one.²

Many would scoff at Kelleher¹s statement; they say there were clear
signs that the papers were eager for a strike. Given its deep pockets
and apparent confidence in a conservative federal court, the company may
have been sure all along that it would eventually win a war of attrition.

Ben Burns, a senior manager at the News for many years before becoming a
professor of journalism at Wayne State University, says that Frank Vega,
president of Detroit Newspapers, gave clear warning that the papers
would break any union that struck.

³He never did anything that wasn¹t advertised in advance,² Burns says.
³Frank Vega put up a fist when he arrived and the unions ran directly
into it. I don¹t think you will ever get anybody to say it, but if you
amortize their losses, there are probably people inside of Gannett who
think it was a pretty damned good investment.²

Vega is clearly one of them.

³They handed us $35 million a year in savings when they walked out of
here ‹ 700 jobs we don¹t need any more,² he told the News in 1997. ³And
that¹s forever.²

An article in The Boston Globe that same year indicates that Vega¹s
attitude is increasingly common in many industries, not just newspapers.
As one expert told the Globe, ³The equation has changed. Workers¹
leverage has been reduced and employers are more willing to push unions
to the wall and take short-term economic losses when necessary.² The
article also cites U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics figures that say,
between 1974 and the mid-1990s, major work stoppages have fallen from
435 per year to fewer than 40 per year.

Now that the newspaper company¹s strategy has prevailed in Detroit,
where can the unions go from here? That¹s a particularly difficult
question because the issues the papers were most eager to go to the mat
over ‹ merit pay and allegations of featherbedding (excessive staffing)
‹ are ones that lose, not win, more public support for unions.

But some say the issues particular to this strike should not obscure a
much larger question it, and other recent labor actions, have raised.
The Rev. Edwin Rowe, pastor of the Central United Methodist Church,
where strikers maintained an office for much of the conflict, says
unions are now practically powerless in the face of a legal system that
has diminished the effectiveness of their most potent weapon ‹ striking.

³This is a small piece of a much larger issue,² he says, ³about whether
there is going to be a right to collective bargaining or whether
corporate America has carte blanche. Things will be pretty dismal until
Congress passes a law that forbids the hiring of permanent replacement
workers in a legal strike. That was the right the NLRB was trying to
preserve in its rulings. This is not just about Detroit; the civil right
of collective bargaining is on the line. I mean, do workers have a real
right to strike or not?²

Bartz says that, during her work on the strike, she saw potential for
organizing around the concept of fair play in collective bargaining. She
helped gather signatures from more than 850 clergy in the Detroit area
for a document that declared ³the permanent replacement of striking
workers Š to be morally objectionable and a breach of the ethical
teachings of our faith traditions.²

³I was really surprised at the kind of support that was there,² she
says; besides the clergy, 25 different city councils in the region voted
to support the newspaper boycott. And, nationally, Methodist churches
organized and supported a boycott of Gannett¹s USA Today. But
transforming that kind of support into a sea change on collective
bargaining laws is a distant goal, particularly with a Republican in the
White House.

Now, obviously, unions face the prospect of working even harder to win
back Congress, the White House and, eventually, the courts. But some
observers say the unions must also look inward and learn about the
tactics necessary for dealing with companies as big and immovable as the
Gannett-Knight Ridder consortium.

Steve Babson, a labor program specialist at Wayne State University¹s
Labor Studies Center, says that if negotiations do not go well again
next time, there are things the unions can do to strengthen their hand.

³The unions had three arrows in their quiver,² Babson says of 1995 ‹ the
strike itself, an organized boycott and a legal strategy. But that¹s
clearly not enough anymore. He says in-plant informational campaigns and
the careful preparation of a strike paper that hits the streets at the
same time as the strikers are essential.

He calls the six-month lag between strike day and the Sunday Journal¹s
first issue ³disastrous² because it crippled the unions¹ ability to
communicate with the public and left reporters with nothing to do ‹ an
extremely frustrating situation for people who enjoy their craft. This,
he says, contributed to the large number of defections from picket lines.

Babson also says strikes must be staged during the peak advertising
season ‹ early November ‹ when they can do the most economic damage. In
the meantime, leaders should train workers in the finer points of labor
negotiations and tactics, particularly the age-old technique of ³work to
rule² ‹ following insurance, safety, government, contract and company
regulations to the letter, reducing productivity.

³Unions need to anticipate adequately just how monumental the struggle
is going to be and make sure they have enough arrows in the quiver,² he
says.

Kelleher suggests more care in choosing who shoots those arrows.

³I would certainly hope that the next time there will be international
representatives overseeing the actions of the locals¹ leaders,² he says.
³I don¹t think there would have been a strike had the Teamsters had
international leaders in at the time of the bargaining.²

Whether the Newspaper Guild, which represents reporters and editors,
would have struck without the Teamsters, who represent workers in the
distribution operations, is doubtful. William Serrin, who worked at the
Free Press almost 40 years ago, currently teaches journalism at New York
University and often reports on labor matters, says the Guild must get
back to basics.

³What was important in the past for Guild members,² he says, ³was
placement of stories, amount of time spent on stories, how you hype
stories and the like. Those are the working conditions issues the Guild
should be involved in, not nickels and dimes.²

To fight the papers on their business methods ‹ particularly those
concerned with technology-induced job attrition in other parts of the
company ‹ is futile, he says. It¹s not really what reporters are
personally or emotionally concerned with.

But Mike Burrell, Newspaper Guild Sector representative with the
Communications Workers of America, thinks there¹s plenty of life left in
newspaper unions and that ³nickel and dime² issues remain entirely
apropos. Burrell, who was stationed in Detroit for part of the strike,
says it hasn¹t tamed newspaper unions at all and, given the huge losses
the company sustained, newspaper companies are prone to be more
cautious, not more swashbuckling.

Burrell worked with the Pacific Northwest Newspaper Guild to help settle
the recent 50-day strike against the Seattle Post Intelligencer and the
Seattle Times. Those papers also publish under a joint operating
agreement, but the size of their ownership is considerably smaller than
the Gannett-Knight Ridder behemoth that¹s in charge in Detroit.

³What happened in Detroit did not deter us in Seattle,² he says. ³If it
was the strategy of Gannett and Knight Ridder in Detroit to put the fear
of God into unions in terms of strikes in the future, that strategy failed.²

And former News manager Burns says that, win or lose, newspaper unions
will always be necessary.

³I¹ve never felt an organization would be better without unions,² he
says, ³because, truthfully, deep down I don¹t think managers are all
that trustworthy. What this is really all about is human nature.²

And as Detroit Newspapers slyly turns a settlement that¹s a disaster for
its workers into a remarketing strategy for both papers ‹ with newsstand
placards and radio spots trumpeting the signed contracts, and bonuses in
those contracts to reward large circulation increases ‹ union members
are pondering personal lessons too.

³I have learned I can do a lot of things I didn¹t think I could do,²
former Free Press star Watson says. ³I now know I can survive and
prosper beyond any job circumstance; I learned how important it is to
love your job. I learned that if you step out on faith, do the right
things, avoid being mean-spirited, things will really turn out OK.²

Sinclair, her former Sunday Journal co-editor, back at the News for
several years now, has discovered much the same thing and shares
Watson¹s deep doubts about the future of unions and newspapers.

³Journalism was my first love and, until the strike, I had never missed
a day of work in 20 years,² he says. ³While I was out it was almost like
it helped me grow up ‹ I could survive without the newspaper, without
the regular paycheck. When I came back to work here, it was time to get
back into journalism. I haven¹t recruited a single soul for the Guild; I
walk straight down the middle. The company has treated me with respect.
But I still pay my $95 a month union dues.²