Off to a good start

Yeah, yeah, I know. It's been a long time since my last post. But that's not because of a lack of anything to write about; it's that I've been too busy to blog. Well, that's my excuse anyway.

I spent the last week of January at a district meeting of the West Coast locals of the Communications Workers of America then filled the better part of the first week of this month with The Newspaper Guild's Media News Project.

While it added up to way too much time spent in chilly windowless meeting rooms, it left me feeling upbeat about organized labor and my fellow union members. It also left me with a nasty cold, but that's not the point of this entry.

At the CWA District 9 meeting, the message was that unions need to change, and are changing: to a scenario where members are more involved and where locals determine the needs, priorities and approaches.

The Media News Project was all about putting that theory into practice: training employees in the Singleton empire to mobilize their co-workers, and in the case of our local, to organize employees at the Bay Area News Group.

A common sentiment ran through both of the meetings: Workers are sick and tired of sitting by and watching their professions deteriorate, and are ready to do something about it.

Nowhere is that more clear than at the Contra Costa Times, where the organizing drive has moved into high gear. If you haven't done it yet, browse the Guild's BANG organizing site , www.onebigbang.org , and read the inspirational messages from the brave employees who are heading the organizing effort.

While the year is young, and the BANG organizing effort has a long way to go, things are definitely off to a good start. It's not too late to join the fun. Contact your unit officers to see how you can get involved.

Michelle gets a chill in D.C.

Michelle Devera Louie filed this dispatch from the National Labor College in Silver Spring, Maryland, where she attended the Guild's New Local Officers Seminar.

On Saturday night, my nameless cohort, our St. Louis colleague and I tagged along with the Canadian contingent as they toured the sights of our nation's capital -- National Mall, Washington Monument, Jefferson Memorial, Vietnam Wall, Lincoln Memorial -- some I had seen before, some I hadn't.

They are impressively beautiful, but even though all I had done all day was sit in a conference room, I was pretty beat. The topics were heavy (Guild communications, organizing drives, collective bargaining and human rights and equity), and I already felt overwhelmed and terrified of the responsibility at hand. Plus, it was frost-bite cold and I'm a Southern Cali kinda gal; anything below 50 is f-r-e-e-z-i-n-g. Did I mention that we had the great pleasure of trailing three busloads of high school students? Like, OMG, how annoying!

My Canadian sisters marveled at the grandeur, at our founding fathers' words of promise, at the dreams for a newly born nation. It was awe inspiring.

This was America in a pure state -- its ideals intact, its virtue untainted, its intent uncompromised.

When we descended the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, it couldn't have been more perfect-perfect: As snow swirled about, a Marine in full dress blues got down on one knee and proposed to the beautiful lady at his side. A crowd surged around them, asking for his autograph, stealing glances at her ring.

It was no doubt a very happy scene. But, it was also a very sad scene. Everyone knew that a too young, too brave, too honorable man would soon go to war. It was too much to bear.

Why bother, right?

Because.

Because even if you can feel the caress of death in everything you do, even if you know that your duty called you to knock upon death's door, if you have something to live for, you are willing to make that sacrifice.

It's called hope. And in the name of hope, we are willing to do extraordinary things. Because without hope, we have nothing.

I have hope.

Guild or gruel

(Michelle Devera Louie is at the National Labor College in Silver Spring, Maryland, for the New Local Officers Seminar. She's blogging about her experience from the land of labor and blue crab. This is her first dispatch.)

As you can see from the sun beating at my back, it's sunny and snowy in Silver Spring, Maryland, and I'm waiting in my room for the party to begin. The weather's not why I'm here though (same goes my cohort who, for now, shall remain nameless).

I'm here because the good people at The Newspaper Guild think I should be. But should I? Do I deserve to be here? My beloved co-workers on the features copy desk already have so much to do and no time to do it, and having one person down is as painful as having teeny-tiny razor blades playfully dragged across your skin while chewing on glass. It continually hurts but, after a while, you get used to it.

That's exactly why I'm here. No one should have to get used to it.

Enough is enough. I cannot stand by and watch quality sacrificed for quantity in the name of "journalism" as my brethren suffer and fatten someone else's wallet. That's not the journalism I practice. That's not the truth, freedom or democracy of my birthright. Someone once told me that we should all be thankful to still have jobs. Please. I'd rather read Dickens than have some higher-up dish it out to me, thank you.

They may serve us gruel but it doesn't mean we have to eat it.

(Editor's note: I'm assured that the food at the National Labor College rates significantly better than gruel. Stay tuned for more dispatches from Michelle...)

Vacation from the valley

In keeping with my New Years goal (don't call it a resolution) of getting more voices on this blog, here are some thoughts from our brothers and sisters in the Central Valley branch of the McClatchy Empire, which was once the proud mainstay of a prosperous newspaper chain. (Full disclosure: I am a proud alumnus of the Modesto branch of the empire's Bee newspapers, and a not-so-proud owner of McClatchy stock):

As McClatchy stock hovers around $11 a share (a couple of years ago it was well north of $60), memoranda urging everyone to cut costs are threatening to choke the e-mail servers. So Worker Bees are wondering why McClatchy execs are choosing to hold their annual editors and publishers conference in sunny San Diego, a city in which McClatchy doesn't even own a newspaper. (At least not yet).

One can only speculate why the meeting is being held in America's Finest City, as S.D. bills itself, instead of at McClatchy Central in California's State Capital. Is it because sunshine is more conducive to corporate profits than tule fog? Because San Diego has a better zoo? Because San Diego's trolley goes to Tijuana (publisher body shots!) while Sacramento's goes to Folsom? (Insert appropriate cliche about inquiring minds here).

Note: Anyone other members with blog items/tips/ledes, send 'em my way: CTUAN@aol.com and I'll compile and post them or, if you prefer, post them as you've written (with some editing, of course.) and give you credit.

New year, new Guild

Like almost everyone else during the holidays, I had great plans to do all kinds of things the past month or so, but ran out of time or energy or both. Turns out I was too busy cramming in shopping during my spare time to write that blog post about tips on buying union gifts for the holidays. As they say, it's the thought that counts.

Maybe I'm just feeling all warm and gushy because of the season -- or is it the egg nog? -- but I think things are looking good for the Guild. After an ugly summer that started (and continued for months) with dozens of layoffs at the Chronicle, and ended with the ANG unit having their union representation stolen from them, we've enjoyed a good couple of months. And we've got momentum on our side as we roll into 2008.

At the aforementioned Chronicle, members decided not to wallow in the post-buyout depression and instead use the opportunity to build a better unit. An enthusiastic group of new leaders has stepped forward and is hard at work recruiting and training new stewards, filling committees, rescuscitating the Chronicle Insider newsletter and coming up with lots of new ideas.

The disenfranchised ANG members have rallied, too. Despite having their union membership taken away (illegally, we believe), they've never given up. Dozens of them still pay union dues -- voluntarily and without payroll deduction -- and they've been active in trying to convince their new brethren and sistren at the Contra Costa Times that joining the Guild is the smart thing to do. As they say in their weekly newsletter: "We're still here. Don't believe the hype."

The effort to organize the Contra Costa Times is taking off. An organizing committee has formed and we hope to start collecting signed union cards in the months to come. In addition to the efforts of the ANG unit, a slew of Chronicle reporters offered their time and in some cases their homes to help with the organizing drive.

The McClatchy units -- at the Sacramento, Fresno and Modesto Bee newspapers -- are also getting stronger with new leadership, a new contract in Fresno, and more members signing up. With McClatchy no longer a smallish chain with a California focus, the Guild's role is crucial in the valley.

There's no question we've got a lot of challenges, and a lot of work, ahead of us. But we're not moping about the sad state of the newspaper industry and the the union movement (Well, maybe occasionally, over beers after work). Instead, we're building a better union. A new Guild for the new year.

Out of control

A couple of recent, little publicized events at the San Francisco Chronicle got me thinking about outsourcing and why it's such a bad idea. It's not just the loss of jobs, it's the loss of control.

Here's what got me thinking (Hey, something has to):

First, the Chronicle informed employees of its finance department that their work will be outsourced: transfered to Houston and/or North Carolina next spring. Many of the 30-40 people affected do have some Guild protections against being laid off. But they will face tough decisions about whether to move with their jobs, take buyouts or find work in other departments at the Chronicle. And the bottom line is that those are jobs that are being lost in San Francisco.

The second event was the subject of a tiny article in the newspaper but a much more expansive report on a local TV station, KGO, Channel 7. Apparently, an independent contractor who handles newspaper deliveries in Contra Costa County tossed into a dumpster paper records of vacationing subscribers who wanted their papers stopped. Some shrewd criminally minded types figured that out (Hmmmmmmmmmm...) and started dumpster diving, grabbing the records and breaking into houses while Chronicle readers were on vacation.

Clearly, the blame here belongs to the criminals and the sloppy habits of the independent contractor. But it's also the Chronicle's fault for outsourcing the work. When a company outsources work, it not only sheds costs, it loses control; it loses direct supervision; and it loses employees who have pride in their work and loyalty to their employer.

Yet, the outsourcing continues. How long will it take before employers begin to realize what it's really costing them?

Dean: Lean or mean?

Unlike my mother, I'm not that much of a worrier. But the more I learn about Dean Singleton, the more I worry about the future of both the people who work for him and for the quality of journalism at his newspapers.

Singleton has earned the nickname “Lean Dean” from fellow publishers and owners, many of whom seem to admire his penny-pinching ways. But his actions over the past couple of weeks make “Mean Dean” seem like a more appropriate moniker. “Out of Control Dean” might work, too, but it doesn’t have that rhyming thing going for it.

By now we’ve all heard of Singleton’s commitment to strong local journalism, and how he’s saved so many local newspapers. That commitment was missing a week or so ago in Connecticut, where, shortly after assuming control of the Stamford Advocate and Greenwich Time (He didn’t actually buy them; Hearst purchased the papers and gave them to Dean to manage. But that’s a topic for another item), he fired seven top editors plus three reporters, three copy editors and a paginator. Many had been long-time employees, credited with making the small papers two of the best in the country.

So much for loyalty, institutional memory, knowledge of local history and traditions. So much for strong local journalism.

Then Dean seemingly went off the deep end, ordering up an anti-labor editorial and placing it on the front page of his flagship paper, the Denver Post. In it, he ripped the Colorado governor for signing an executive order that allows state workers to join unions. And he did so in a particularly nasty fashion, likening the governor to Jimmy Hoffa and accusing him of being “a toady to labor bosses.”

Now, we always knew that Dean didn’t particularly like unions, but it always seemed like more of a business thing. But the editorial makes it seem that Singleton harbors a deep hatred for organized labor.

So, what exactly does that mean for his promise of letting the journalists of ANG Newspapers and the Contra Costa Times decide — without undue influence or misinformation from MediaNews management — whether or not they want to be members of The Newspaper Guild?


As I said at the start, I’m worried.