Thanksgiving and the holiday season it kicks off are a time to give thanks and appreciate friends and family. I'm in sunny Goleta, spending time with my family, and I'm thankful for that. But I wanted to take a couple of moments to say thanks to my union family.
And I really do consider it a family of sorts, though sometimes a dysfunctional one, like most families. We care about each other, we help each other, we fight for what's best for us. And we support each other, especially when times are tough, which they've certainly been lately.
There are endless numbers of examples, so I won't single anyone out. But thanks to all the Guild staff, officers and activists. Enjoy the turkey and, especially, the pie.
Thursday, November 27, 2008
Monday, November 24, 2008
Twisted logic from Forbes
Even journalists, well-known for our mathematical inabilities, can figure out this word problem. Let's say you have $1,000 you're saving for a new laptop. It gets stolen, leaving you with nothing. So you work a lot of overtime -- putting it down on your timecard (hint-hint). Your long hours and hard work pays off, and you earn $2,000. So, the question is: How much did you earn? The answer, of course, is $2,000.
But a writer from Forbes would disagree. In a recent article about The Newspaper Guild (check it out via the Media Workers website), James Erik Abels downplays the magnitude of the Bay Area News Group -- East Bay organizing campaign. In an interview, I laid out the history of the BANG campaign, starting with the Singleton purchase of the Contra Costa Newspapers and the subsequent decision to form BANG East Bay and withdraw its recognition of the Guild contract.
To Abels, that somehow means that the accomplishment of organizing BANG's 208 members wasn't as significant as it seems. To me, that doesn't make sense mathematically: We gained 208 members where we had zero.
But it also ignores that the Contra Costa Times was a long-time non-union (and anti-union) paper that unions had eyed for years. And that the organizing campaign was driven in large part by a desire to maintain journalistic quality. And that nobody in the newspaper industry (and especially at Media News) ever expected it to succeed.
Abels does quote me as saying that we're receiving a lot of organizing inquiries, though he doesn't mention my statement that it's because journalists are getting fed up with the steady decline in staffing and quality, and the failures of newspaper management to try any strategy other than slashing jobs. (Now there's a story for a good business magazine).
The gist of the article is that the Guild is struggling to survive. Being in a union has always meant struggling, and that's never been more true than in the past decade of a hostile National Labor Relations Board and Department of Labor. (Fortunately, that should change soon).
But we're not struggling to survive as a union (Cue the Gloria Gaynor music here). Sure, times are tough, and yes, we're losing members to layoffs. But we're organizing, we're adapting to changing times and techologies, we're exploring (and getting involved in) alternative ownership models, we're planning for our future.
Don't write The Newspaper Guild off just yet.
But a writer from Forbes would disagree. In a recent article about The Newspaper Guild (check it out via the Media Workers website), James Erik Abels downplays the magnitude of the Bay Area News Group -- East Bay organizing campaign. In an interview, I laid out the history of the BANG campaign, starting with the Singleton purchase of the Contra Costa Newspapers and the subsequent decision to form BANG East Bay and withdraw its recognition of the Guild contract.
To Abels, that somehow means that the accomplishment of organizing BANG's 208 members wasn't as significant as it seems. To me, that doesn't make sense mathematically: We gained 208 members where we had zero.
But it also ignores that the Contra Costa Times was a long-time non-union (and anti-union) paper that unions had eyed for years. And that the organizing campaign was driven in large part by a desire to maintain journalistic quality. And that nobody in the newspaper industry (and especially at Media News) ever expected it to succeed.
Abels does quote me as saying that we're receiving a lot of organizing inquiries, though he doesn't mention my statement that it's because journalists are getting fed up with the steady decline in staffing and quality, and the failures of newspaper management to try any strategy other than slashing jobs. (Now there's a story for a good business magazine).
The gist of the article is that the Guild is struggling to survive. Being in a union has always meant struggling, and that's never been more true than in the past decade of a hostile National Labor Relations Board and Department of Labor. (Fortunately, that should change soon).
But we're not struggling to survive as a union (Cue the Gloria Gaynor music here). Sure, times are tough, and yes, we're losing members to layoffs. But we're organizing, we're adapting to changing times and techologies, we're exploring (and getting involved in) alternative ownership models, we're planning for our future.
Don't write The Newspaper Guild off just yet.
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