Tuesday, June 2, 2009
Mercury News Journalists Agree to Pay Cuts
Business / Media / People Robert Gammon — Tue, Jun 2, 2009 at 10:24 AM
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Union-represented journalists at the San Jose Mercury News agreed to significant pay cuts last night as the newspaper industry continued to decline during the steep recession. Merc journalists voted 127-39 to ratify a contract agreement that cuts pay immediately by 7 percent, plus another 2 percent on January 1. The contract also results in higher medical-care payments, less vacation time, and lets the company put workers on unpaid furlough for up to five days next year. In addition, the deal allows MediaNews to move Merc copy editors to its consolidated copy editing facility in Walnut Creek, which also serves the Contra Costa Times and the Oakland Tribune. "This is a tough contract that will hurt a lot of our members, but it reflects the terrible situation that the news industry and the country is in," San Jose Guild President Sylvia Ulloa, who was on the bargaining committee, said in a statement. "The committee did the best we could do to limit the damage to our members, minimize the loss of jobs and to try to maintain the quality of the Mercury News." Journalists at the Trib and CC Times will be voting on their contract today.
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Regarding the East Bay contract, Sara Steffens in her spin control failed to note that the union agreed to some things that are actually *worse* than what is in the employee handbook.
Among them: The union agreed to open-ended payments, without limit, as part of the contract.
Multiple company officials with BANG-EB have stated "this is a great contract for MediaNews Group." The company also is reportedly eager for this to go into effect.
The backup for this is in Article 17.5 of the East Bay contract.
Also notice that the vote occurred within just a few days of the tentative agreement.
Why the rush to get this enacted, if it's such a great deal for the company? Why is the union so eager to get a vote on this?
The answer is simple. Union bosses like Carl T. Hall fear that people will become furious when they see how the union rolled over and played dead for MediaNews Group.
If pay cuts are necessary, why did the East Bay union at least not demand the same kind of limit on the pay cuts that the San Jose union extracted from the exact same company -- a 9 percent limit.?
Good union lap dog! Play dead! Heel!
Also, people who are blogging about this demonstrate a remarkable lack of curiosity about the pay cuts in the East Bay.
Regarding East Bay Express' coverage of this, I have a few questions:
Does EBE think the East Bay would escape the pay cuts?
Doesn't EBE think it was a bit odd that Sara Steffens has made no mention of the potential for pay cuts in the East Bay? Or the pay cut language? And it's certainly far more open-ended than the pay cut language in San Jose.
Did you ever find out the real reason why some people left their union leadership posts in the East Bay? And I'm not talking about Sara.
Bottom line: We skeptics about the union warned that at some point, the union would simply capitulate to management and screw the workers. All we wanted was the best thing for the employees: a union free work place where employees could deal directly with management, free of the dead hand of the union bosses.
The union bosses have what they want: a contract at all costs, and people paying dues.
The company has what it wants: an invertebrate for a union, a supine enabler.
What do the employees get that wasn't in the handbook? A summer to ponder the prospects of potential pay cuts without limit, starting as soon as Oct. 1, 2009.
Gee thanks, Newspaper Guild. Have a great summer!
-George
what Sara Steffens said is "in quotes"
what she really meant to say is **in stars**
“This is a really happy conclusion"
**for management. This was**
"a long struggle"
**designed to create the farce that the union supported the employees, but what the union really wanted was to get more people paying dues**
"on the part of a lot of people"
**specifically the union bosses who lied about their true intentions until they could get a contract at any cost**
said Sara Steffens
**who is a colleage of Carl T. Hall, a union boss who works for the Newspaper Guild, which filed a vindictive, vengeful, spiteful grievance that, had it been successful, would have rescinded pay raises for hard-working employees who were anti-union**
"It's clear that our union's here to stay"
**and be a faithful lapdog for management**
"We want to continue building a new relationship with the company."
**because surely there must be more issues on which we can capitulate in our role of supine enablers.**
That's what Sara really meant to say, reading between the lines.
-George
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