You may have already received a copy of a bargaining survey from your shop steward. If not, your steward will be approaching you in the coming days to fill out a copy of this short, anonymous survey. We hope you’ll take a few minutes to complete and return this to your steward, and help our unit get ready for negotiations.

Also in this update:

• Online filing
• Membership clarification
• San Francisco Chronicle bargaining update
• Sacramento Bee tentative agreement
• Hawaii Newspaper Guild merger

Online filing

Recently, newsroom workers got an e-mail specifying the company’s policy on filing online stories or short updates after a night meeting. We’ve heard a few questions and concerns about this in terms of scheduling and equipment.

We fully support the company’s efforts in improving our online presence, including updating our website as quickly and as often as possible. As we pursue this goal, we also encourage employees to carefully track any resulting overtime and how this affects your schedule in general (employees are entitled to either overtime or comp time when they work beyond a scheduled shift.)

If you feel you need certain equipment to complete this work (such as a company cell phone or laptop with internet connection), we encourage you to ask your supervisor for that as well.

If you have any questions or problems regarding this policy, reply to this email, talk to your shop steward, or call unit president Eric Louie at 415-377-4609.

Membership clarification

We’ve come across some confusion recently about what it means to be a dues-paying Guild member in good standing. Dues account for 1.65% of your gross pay, capped at $24.88 per pay period.

Our contract covers “all full time and regular part time employees in the editorial department of the Bay Area News Group-East Bay.” So, for example, if you ever need the Guild’s help in a dispute with a supervisor, we will represent you whether you are a dues-payer or not.

However, you must pay dues to be able to vote on contracts, participate in members-only meetings, help decide how our budget is spent, take advantage of Guild scholarships and training opportunities, serve as a shop steward, or run for unit office.

If you aren’t a member, you forfeit your right to be part of all these decisions and opportunities. That’s your right, under our open-shop contract. But unless you join with us as a full member, you depend on others to make those decisions on your behalf.

In addition to those benefits, the tax-deductible dues also help pay for any support our unit needs in contract negotiations, bargaining changes to working conditions, and dealing with workplace issues and grievances.

If you filled out a membership form sometime in the last couple of years, that does not necessarily mean you are paying dues. If you’re not sure, you can ask a shop steward to check for you, or take a look at your pay stub – if you’re already paying dues that way, you should see an item called “ESBAY Guild Due” in the “deductions” box.

If you’re not already paying dues and would like to begin having the amount deducted from your paycheck, just fill out a dues check-off form and give it to your shop steward, or mail it to:

California Media Workers Guild
Local 39521, The Newspaper Guild-CWA
433 Natoma Street, Third Floor
San Francisco, CA 94103

If you’d rather not pay dues through your paycheck, you can have the amount deducted straight from your bank account by filling out an “authorization for debit entries” form; or, you can mail a check to the Guild office.

If you have questions or need a form, reply to this email, talk to your shop steward, or call unit president Eric Louie at 415-377-4609.

San Francisco Chronicle bargaining update

Guild members at the San Francisco Chronicle have begun negotiations for a new contract to replace the current agreement, which runs out June 30.

The union committee, led by Chronicle Unit Chair Michelle Devera, has met with management several times over the past month. Members delivered an initial proposal that outlines more than a dozen improvements. Many would restore cuts agreed to in February 2009 to avert a threatened sale or shutdown of the Hearst-owned newspaper and SFGate.com website.

Issues include pay raises, vacations, sick leave, retirement benefits and job security.

As a show of solidarity and support, Chronicle workers have begun wearing red on Wednesdays.

For bargaining bulletins and other updates, visit Mediaworkers.org

Sacramento Bee tentative agreement

A three-year tentative agreement has been negotiated by the Sacramento Bee Guild Unit, where the management had been seeking a sharp cut in severance and virtually unlimited rights to transfer employees and outsource jobs.

Workers are scheduled to vote today on whether to ratify the proposed agreement, reached Friday May 21.

Ed Fletcher, a Bee reporter and the Guild’s unit chair in Sacramento, wrote a summary of the deal, posted here on the Media Workers website.

“While the tone of the negotiations was a marked improvement over last year’s talks, Friday’s session could be described as tense,” Fletcher wrote. “At the end of the day, metaphorically and actually, the negotiating team felt the company’s proposed agreement reflects the economic realities of our time and is a marked improvement over the company’s initial proposal. The unit’s goal is to fight for the working journalists and advertising staff covered by the contract, while recognizing the unsteady, evolving industry.”

Terms include a 2 percent average pay increase for 2010 and retroactive pay raises for some employees. Pay raises for 2011 and 2012 will be negotiated later.

One of the most contentious issues was severance pay, which has been capped at 40 weeks’ pay for veteran staff. Management demanded a reduction to a 26-week cap, even for employees who already had accrued severance rights in excess of that limit. In the end, a compromise was reached that preserves the full severance entitlement for senior employees but sets a new limit for recent hires.

Job security was another sticking point. The Guild fought to keep as many jobs as possible in Sacramento. The company wanted unlimited ability to turn jobs from full-time to part-time, and to outsource operations at will.

The tentative agreement limits part-time conversions to seven jobs held by those hired since 2007, and provides enhanced severance for anyone choosing to leave the paper, while protecting benefits for those who choose to stay part-time.

Also, outsourcing will be limited to sending design and copy desk work to other McClatchy properties. Special severance terms kick in for any Sacramento Bee employees affected by such a move.

Hawaii Newspaper Guild merger

Members of California Media Workers’ Executive Committee and Representative Assembly recently voted to participate in a “strategic review” of possible merger options with the Hawaii Newspaper Guild and other CWA locals in the Bay Area.

No decisions have been made other than to continue merger discussions guided by a set of principles, listed in a resolution you can read here.

The Hawaii Guild is being rocked by the consolidation of the Advertiser and Star-Bulletin in Honolulu, which will lead to elimination of hundreds of jobs. CWA Local 9415, based in Oakland, also has members in Hawaii, and has been a close ally of the San Francisco-based California Media Workers Guild, which includes the BANG-East Bay and Mercury News units. Our East Bay unit holds its regular meetings at CWA 9415’s headquarters on Park Boulevard, for instance.

A proposed merged plan will be discussed by California Media Workers’ executive committee during its next regular meeting:

10 a.m.- noon
Saturday, June 19
California Media Workers headquarters
433 Natoma in San Francisco
(Third floor)

No merger of locals would affect the status of individual bargaining units — the BANG-EB unit would not merge simply because our parent union local became part of a larger local. But a merger, or some other kind of alliance beyond what exists now, could make sense by keeping costs down and allowing for pooled resources. A larger local, for instance, could support an expanded organizing and communications staff.

As always, please contact us if you have any questions.

Journalists packed City College of San Francisco on April 24 for our first “Spring Training for Journalists,” a daylong workshop we hope will become an annual tradition for news staffers, freelancers and students throughout our region.

This year’s offering, “Reinventing Your Career,” covered the job and technology skills demanded by a fast-changing news profession. Top-flight instructors ran seminars on topics such as entry-level multimedia, audio production basics and working with interpreters to report on underserved communities.

Admission was free to all dues-paying Guild members, including those working at BANG newspapers and members of our freelance unit.

Journalists packed the session “Driving Web Traffic,” led by Wired.com Science Editor Betsy Mason and Knight Digital Media Center Webmaster and Scot Hacker, which outlined how social networking and HTML coding can be used to help build an online audience.

They raved about the concise and funny instruction of former Chronicle staffer Kim Komenich, a longtime photojournalist who now teaches multimedia at San Jose State. Komenich gave a whirlwind introduction to producing “Multimedia on the Cheap,” showing how journalists can experiment with new forms of storytelling, even if they or their newsrooms lack the funds to make a major investment in equipment and software.

And they took notes as keynote speaker Davia Nelson, half of the award-winning NPR documentary duo, “the Kitchen Sisters,” showed how lowering a microphone down to chest level can help put an interview subject at ease.

Steve Fainaru, who won a 2008 Pulitzer Prize for his reporting on military contractors in Iraq, kicked off the day by explaining why he gave up his gig at the Washington Post to take on a radically different assignment: managing editor in charge of news at the Bay Citizen, the nonprofit startup the Guild helped to create in the interest of quality journalism.

Former San Francisco Chronicle staffer Kim Komenich, a longtime photojournalist and Pulitzer winner who now teaches multimedia at San Jose State, gave some funny and concise advice on multimedia.

Organized by California Media Workers, the training event was cosponsored by the City College of San Francisco Journalism Department and the Bay Area Media Training Consortium, or BAMTC. A partnership of the Bay Area Video Coalition, California Media Workers, NOVA and the UC Berkeley School of Journalism, BAMTC is seeking grants to form a virtual “one stop” career transition network for more than 700 Bay Area journalists.

Here’s a short item on this from E&P.

Meanwhile, life marches on for our newsroom Guild unit, where we’re preparing to enter contract bargaining later this year. Our next general membership meeting will be:

7 p.m. Monday, April 5

at the CWA Hall

1831 Park Blvd., Oakland

Since we’ll begin negotiating for our next contract in late summer-early fall, we need your help and ideas now to shape our next agreement with management. Come by the meeting and let us know what your priorities are in the next contract, and how you think we should go about getting those things. You can also send us an e-mail or share your thoughts with a shop steward.

At our next meeting, we’ll also be assembling the bargaining committee that will be negotiating with management. If you’re interested in helping out that way, please attend next month or send us a note.

“Your View on Local News: A Town Hall Forum”

The Society of Professional Journalists is sponsoring a community-wide town hall discussion on local news this week, focusing on how the current crisis in the news industry creates opportunities for the public to help shape new kinds of journalism that contribute to a vibrant democracy.

The conversation will explore strategies and business models for ensuring robust and reliable news coverage in a changing economic, technological and social environment.

Featured participants include Venise Wagner, Journalism Department chair at San Francisco State University; Ron Dellums, Oakland Mayor; Glenn Frankel, Pulitzer Prize-winning Stanford professor; Mark Adkins, Chronicle President; and Lisa Frazier, CEO at the Bay Area News Project.

Everyone is welcome to attend and participate in this free event:

Thursday, March 25
5:30 to 7:30 p.m.
San Francisco Library’s Koret Auditorium

CWA Scholarships

Don’t miss the March 31 deadline to apply for CWA’s Beirne scholarships, which can help you or a family member attend college or pursue an online distance-learning degree in the 2010-11 academic year.

The annual scholarships from the Joe Beirne Foundation, named for CWA’s founding president, provide 15 students up to $3,000 toward their college tuition. The award can be renewed for a second year if winners have a satisfactory academic record.

CWA members, spouses, children, grandchildren and dependents of retired, laid-off or deceased members are eligible. Winners will be chosen from a lottery of eligible applicants.

Applications are available online only at www.cwa-union.org/members/beirne, where you’ll also find more information. Applications must be submitted electronically no later than midnight Wednesday, March 31.

Members of our local — the California Media Workers Guild, Local 39521 — can also apply separately for up to $500 in scholarship support. College-bound children and other dependents of members in good standing, including members of the new Freelance Unit, can apply. Here’s a link to the application form:

Check our Web site for more information.

Save the Date! “Spring Training: Reinventing your Journalism Career”

Mark your calendars for this event, which will feature various workshops and speakers exploring ways to reinvent your journalism career — in the job you have now, or the one you imagine having in the future. The session will focus on enhancing your writing and reporting, developing new media skills, revamping your resume, and more. Admission is free for all Guild members; complete schedule and other details to follow.

Saturday, April 24
9:30 a.m. to 5 p.m.
SF City College, Ocean campus

Sponsored by California Media Workers Guild, the Bay Area Media Training Consortium, and the San Francisco City College Journalism Department. ]]> http://onebigbang.org/obb/?feed=rss2&p=757 0 http://onebigbang.org/obb/?p=753 http://onebigbang.org/obb/?p=753#comments Fri, 05 Mar 2010 19:01:42 +0000 admin2 http://onebigbang.org/obb/?p=753 Update, March 4: A judge today approved a restructuring plan that will allow Affiliated Media Inc., the parent company of MediaNews, to emerge from Chapter 11 bankruptcy.

The decision came despite a handful of last-minute objections from creditors.

The deal cuts the company’s debt from $930 million to $165 million, according to a press release issued on PR Newswire earlier this morning.

“We knew we had a good plan going in, and it had been approved by the lenders before it was filed,” CEO Dean Singleton said in the statement. “We are pleased that it won confirmation, and that our company is now well-positioned for the changing days ahead.”

A Bloomberg story provides more details.

Corporate officers have repeatedly said the debt restructuring will not affect daily newspaper operations or employees. Nonetheless, officials up to the highest level of The Newspaper Guild have been following the situation closely. We will continue to share details about the bankruptcy, and its aftermath, as they emerge.

As always, please don’t hesitate to bring any questions or concerns to your unit officers or shop stewards.

Vacation
We discussed the company’s recent push for employees to use their vacation time, with an emphasis on taking those days before the end of June, and striving to use up each year’s accrual without banking time. We encourage workers to schedule their known vacations for many reasons, including easier bookkeeping and scheduling for the company, and making sure employees get the time off they want. However, we object to unit members being strongly pressured or forced to take vacations against their will.

Management maintains they can schedule vacation time for employees if they don’t do it themselves; the Guild disagrees. We’ve reminded the company of our contract provision allowing Guild-represented employees to accrue up to 1.75 times their yearly vacation accrual. The company agreed to this in previous contract negotiations after the Guild offered up a system that had employees scheduling all their yearly accrued vacation up front. Management turned down that proposal, and we take issue with an attempt to impose a condition the company previously rejected at the bargaining table.

For the time being, the company has met their vacation goals and the issue has died down. If it resurfaces, please contact your shop steward or other unit officer.

Holidays
The Guild has also asked management to clarify their position in writing on which days our workers will be eligible for the holiday premium pay this year, particularly for holidays that fall on weekends. We’d like to resolve this issue and communicate to employees about it well before the holidays to avoid confusion and disputes.

Students and interns
We also discussed with management some special arrangements, like the partnership with UC Berkeley students covering Richmond through their online publication Richmond Confidential. The Guild supports innovation and we believe such arrangements can be beneficial for both the students and BANG. These partnerships are acceptable as long as they do not take work away from Guild members, and the details of the arrangements are clear to all involved: The students, the editors and our unit members. The Guild does not believe these arrangements are a threat to full-time jobs, but we will continue to question the company on any concerns our employees have about workers outside the unit.

In addition, we brought up the company’s use of interns, and Guild leaders will be going over details such as how many interns will be employed and the length of their service. We will be discussing this issue more at our next membership meeting (see more information below).

Freelancers
The Guild also continued to press the company this week on the use of freelancers as hourly employees, which the company said it also opposes. The Guild asked the company to look into this practice, and reiterated that if anyone is currently working in that capacity, they should not lose work but rather be hired on a more permanent basis.

Training
Some good news: The company said it is within weeks of applying for training for up to four workers offered by the Bay Area Video Coalition, and will be contacting Guild members who had proposed this.

San Mateo County
Finally, we’ve clarified with management the changes to the San Mateo County Times that will now have the paper more aligned with the San Jose Mercury News. The company said San Mateo staff will remain in the BANG-EB Unit and will continue to report to BANG-EB supervisors. Local content will still come from San Mateo staff, but with San Jose content being added.

Representing the Guild: Unit chair Eric Louie and CWA/TNG local representative Carl Hall
Representing the company: Vice President Jim Janiga and labor relations attorney Andy Huntington

Next membership meeting
Join us at our unit’s next general membership meeting to talk about workplace issues, an intern policy, the company’s bankruptcy, and negotiating our next contract, among other things.

7 p.m. Monday, March 8
CWA Hall,
1831 Park Blvd., Oakland

All are welcome and ideas are encouraged!

Union scholarships
Need money for college? Union families in the Communications Workers of America and California Media Workers Guild can apply now for our national and local scholarships.

CWA members and their spouses, children and grandchildren, including those of retired or deceased members, can try for the $3,000 (plus another $3,000 with a year of good marks) Joe Beirne Foundation grant.

Our own local offers a competition for awards up to $500. College-bound children and other dependents of members in good standing can apply.

Find details on both programs, including applications, at www.MediaWorkers.org. Winners will be announced and notified in June.

Freelancers survey
If you’re a student or a freelancer, or know someone who is, please take a minute to fill out or pass along a survey we’re conducting.

Guild Freelancers, our local’s growing freelance unit, is surveying independent journalists, writers and media workers in Northern California about their lives and the freelance market. Many of our members are former newspaper workers.

The resulting data will help us raise awareness about current issues facing freelancers, and will also help us tailor services to your needs.

All questions are optional and answers are anonymous. Find the survey link here.

In the news
* Our holding company, Affiliated Media, is due in federal bankruptcy court Thursday in Delaware, hoping to exit Chapter 11 through its prepackaged restructuring. Here’s  a report from the Wall Street Journal.
* An affiliate of Tribune Co. has filed an objection to the deal, hoping to clarify its ability to sue over an old debt, Denver Biz Journal reported.
* Dean Singleton publicly expressed his support for gay marriage and legalizing marijuana, according to WestWord.
* Plans to erect online pay walls at several MNG properties attracted increasing attention of industry observers. Here’s takes from Business Week, Paid Content and the Business Insider.
* The New York Times mentioned our sister paper, the Daily News, in an article about the unusually competitive newspaper environment in Palo Alto.
* And staffers Josh Richman and Thomas Peele are among four winners of the McGill Medal for Journalism Courage.

So far, proceedings in Delaware bankruptcy court seem to agree with the idea that Chapter 11 proceedings will be limited to MNG’s holding company, Affiliated Media Inc., and will not affect employees or union contracts.

David R. Hock of Cohen, Weiss and Simon represented The Newspaper Guild/ Communications Workers of America locals at the first day hearing on Jan. 26. It appears the pre-packaged bankruptcy will come to a swift conclusion, heading for confirmation without objection on March 4.

The U.S. Trustee is not inclined to convene a creditors’ committee. Local counsel of record will keep us updated on any court filings.

What the bankruptcy documents have shown so far:

• Hearst loses its $300-$400 million investment in MNG, but will get warrants that someday could be converted to stock.
• MediaNews President Jody Lodovic and Chairman and CEO Dean Singleton will continue to control the company post-bankruptcy.
• Under the reorganization plan, Singleton gets $634,000 in annual salary, an annual bonus of up to $500,000, and another $360,000 in salary from the Denver Post Corp. (Read AP’s story here).
• Lodovic gets $1 million in annual salary and an annual bonus of up to $500,000. He already got $500,000 in bonuses for leading the reorganization, and stands to get an extra $250,000 bonus when the bankruptcy is official.

Guild attorneys will continue to monitor the proceedings, including scouring all local agreements and pension plans for any mention of Affiliated Media.

The full text of the bankruptcy disclosure statement can be read here.

Consolidation with the Chronicle?

At this point, a main concern for all of us should be whether this bankruptcy will pave the way for even more consolidation — including a potential merger of the Bay Area News Group with the San Francisco Chronicle.

Singleton has been open about his desire to pursue more aggressive consolidation post-bankruptcy, telling the Washington Post that to imagine where such mergers might occur, “You can look at the map.”

As blogger Alan Mutter notes, “The long-running losses at the Chronicle, plus the MediaNews bankruptcy, may be sufficient to persuade regulators that an antitrust waiver is necessary to sustain journalism in Northern California.”  (Read the rest of his piece here.)

Over the past few years, both the Chronicle and the Bay Area News Group have suffered huge cuts to staffing, benefits, and our news hole. Guild members at all our region’s newspapers have endured significant personal sacrifice to help keep our companies afloat.

We understand the financial realities of our industry. Our bargaining units have always sought to act as partners rather than adversaries. When our companies succeed, we all benefit.

But when we see our owners making grave mistakes, we must stand in their way. If cheapening and worsening of our product continues, our readers and advertisers will lose their last shreds of faith in our ability to serve the public, and provide accurate, comprehensive and timely information.

Corporate owners routinely push for mergers and less competition. That’s never been in the best interest of workers or the community; it’s illegal in many cases.

The Guild will fight any attempt to eliminate newsroom jobs, or entire newsrooms. We need a real, long-term business plan that values quality jobs and quality journalism. Cuts and consolidation alone cannot save the news business.

One last thought on the MNG bankruptcy, and local vs. corporate ownership, from the Seattle Times:

“Newspapers need to be in the hands of people who care about them. Those are almost always investors with a strong local connection. The San Jose Mercury News ought to be owned by people from San Jose — not by a company in Denver owned by another company in Denver owned by a bank in Charlotte, N.C.”

Using your vacation time

Newsroom employees were recently asked to tell their supervisors when they plan to take vacation time this year, for accounting purposes. The company said its “expectation” is that all workers take the amount of vacation they accrue each year.

The Guild understands the company’s need for this information and their desire to reduce the amount of accrued vacation on the books. In fact, during the last contract negotiations, the Guild offered to discuss a system like the San Francisco Chronicle’s, where employees schedule their vacation at the beginning of the year with the intent of using all their yearly accrual. The company declined.

The Guild still encourages employees who have planned vacations to inform their supervisors and schedule their time off early. However, we also want to remind workers that there is no requirement to take this time off. According to our contract, “Employees may accrue up to a maximum of 1.75 times one year’s vacation benefit.” For example, if you currently earn 15 vacation days a year, you may accrue up to 26.25 days (or 210 hours). Once you reach the maximum accrual, you won’t earn more vacation until you use some of it up.

The company has said employees will not be held to the approximate vacation plans they indicate now. However, if you feel uncomfortable scheduling vacation you aren’t sure, or don’t think, you will actually be taking, you have every right not to schedule it and simply accrue the hours.

With the Guild also hearing complaints that members have not been able to schedule vacation when they wanted to because of staffing levels, knowing about these rights is especially important.

If you have trouble with this, please contact your shop steward or any other Guild leader.

Can the iPad save journalism?

Pundits varied last week on whether Apple’s new release will help our industry, but one thing is clear: It makes no sense to simply translate old-school print content onto any new device.

Yes, MediaNews’ bankruptcy woes are a huge distraction, but it would be a big mistake not to keep looking forward, and keep up with new technology.

We say: There’s no better time than now. We’re creating a short-term task force to research the iPad and other e-readers, to discuss how they might change our products, and to recommend specific training that will help journalists make the most of these devices.

State training funds will be available through July; it only makes sense to move aggressively and take advantage of them, despite the gloom and doom of our industry.

Ready to volunteer? Or just want to share ideas? E-mail Sara Steffens.

Industry news

The nonprofit Bay Area News Project has hired its top leaders: Editor-in-chief Jonathan Weber and CEO Lisa Frazier.

Weber is perhaps best known in the Bay Area as the founder of The Industry Standard, a dot-com era magazine. After that company filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, Weber moved to Montana and founded New West, which covers the Rocky Mountain region through its Web site, NewWest.Net.

Frazier, a partner at consulting firm McKinsey & Co., began helping structure the Bay Area News Project last spring.

Weber plans to hire 15 journalists by the end of the year, and double that number in the next two to three years. He told the Guild he is casting a broad net for talent and hopes to post job descriptions soon.

While interns likely will play some role in the News Project, “It’s definitely not the case that we envision Berkeley students being a substitute for professional journalists,” Weber said.

“We intend to be very open as an organization, and we intend to pursue a wide range of collaborations, with high-quality and competitively compensated, professional journalism staff at the core,” he added.

The group also announced it has reached an agreement to supply news for the Bay Area section of the New York Times, and that founding partner KQED will not serve on the board of the Bay Area News Project.

Read more here.

The official documents and the resulting hearings should provide more details of the arrangement, including the new ownership structure, and what, if any, compensation Hearst will receive for relinquishing its stake in the company. In the meantime, MediaNews has promised that neither workers nor daily operations of our newspapers will be affected by the bankruptcy, and we intend to hold them at their word.

What the Guild is doing on our end:

The Newspaper Guild has represented workers at five newspaper company bankruptcies, and in every case, employees continue to work and get paid, noted Carol Rothman, secretary-treasurer of TNG. “None of the guild properties have been affected any more drastically than anyone who is not in bankruptcy,” said Rothman.

The Guild has hired a law firm that specializes in bankruptcy to monitor workers’ interests as the filing proceeds, and representatives across the country are gathering relevant financial information.

Union members in St. Paul have been assured by Marshall Anstandig, MediaNews’ senior vice president for labor relations, that their contract will continue to stand through its expiration date, July 31, 2011. The Pioneer Press was the unnamed newspaper cited in MediaNews’ Friday press release as losing money, Anstandig said.

The St. Paul unit is scheduled to vote later this week on potential salary cuts and other concession

If you have any specific questions or concerns about the bankruptcy announcement, please don’t hesitate to contact Unit Chair Eric Louie or any of our shop stewards. We’ll do our best to find answers for you.

For those who want to read up on the issue, here are some good link:  The Wall Street Journal has the most comprehensive coverage. Here’s the word from Editor & Publisher (yes, they’re back!). Click here for our Guild response. Content Bridges ponders further consolidation in the wake of the filing. And a former MediaNews publisher weighs in on Singleton’s next chapter for Nieman Lab.

MediaNews Summit

Unit chair Eric Louie spent the weekend at the Guild’s San Francisco offices with union leaders from MediaNews properties from California, Colorado, Michigan and Minnesota. The group shared bargaining strategies and discussed the company’s financial future.

Following Friday’s bankruptcy announcement, the summit began with an overview of how The Newspaper Guild has represented workers’ interests during past newspaper company bankruptcies, and a discussion of potential next steps.

Those attending also discussed the outcome of recent rounds of bargaining, focusing not only on cuts and concessions, but also those areas where bargaining teams were able to protect workers.

Contracts expire this fall at BANG-East Bay, the San Jose Mercury News and the Monterey Herald.

Other discussions focused on sharing ideas to help our bargaining units continue to stand up for quality jobs and quality journalism.

The summit was part of the MediaNews Project, supported by a Strategic Industries Fund grant from our parent union, Communication Workers of America.

The project focuses particularly on improving communications and coordination among Guild units at various MediaNews properties.

You can read more about the MediaNews Project here.

‘New Times, New Guild’ series

Our Local, California Media Workers Guild, has created some of the nation’s most innovative and forward-thinking union programs — including the nonprofit Bay Area News Project, our growing freelance unit, and a new effort to increase newsroom fluency in language and culture by pairing journalists with court interpreters.

You can read about these and other efforts in a seven-part “New Times, New Guild” series now featured on MediaWorkers.org, our Local’s award-winning Web site.

BAVC Training

During last year’s contract negotiations, management and the Guild agreed that the shifting landscape of news-gathering and presentation required increased training opportunities for our newsroom employees.

The Bay Area Video Coalition (BAVC) was identified as an ideal partner to provide such training, at no cost to the company. The state funds a program through BAVC for retraining employees, and the money is good through July 2010.

The company agreed last year that in January 2010, it would select ten employees (five from the East Bay group and five from San Jose) to take advantage of this intensive multimedia program.

We hope to hear from management soon about the application process. We have every reason to believe the company will honor its agreement on this, as it has in the past, despite the obvious distractions of the last few weeks.

Other news

Job cuts at McClatchy show that even when business starts to improve, it’s no guarantee newspapers will turn away from a self-destructive cost-cutting strategy and find real solutions.

Get involved

Bargaining for our next contract will be here before we know it, and we could use your help.

If you’re not a Guild member yet, please consider becoming one now – it allows you to vote on contracts and union leadership, among other benefits.

Even before we secured our first contract, our unit enjoyed immense support from the Guild staff in negotiating layoffs and buy-outs, pay cuts and other changes to our newsroom. The Guild also provides support and training for both current and former employees.

If you need a membership form or have any questions, please see your shop steward, or contact Eric Louie or Shelly Meron.

Speaking of shop stewards, we could always use more! It’s a relatively easy way to help out and be a resource to your co-workers. If you’re interested in becoming a shop steward, please contact Eric or Shelly.

The company has said that daily newspaper operations will not be affected, and employees will continue to receive pay and benefits as usual. At this point, we have no reason to disbelieve these statements.

That said, we are taking the situation very seriously, seeking research and resources from the highest level of the Guild – and plan to hold the company to its promises. We have retained legal counsel with expertise in bankruptcy proceedings and will take all necessary steps to ensure our voice is heard and the interests of our members and retirees are protected.

Earlier this week our Newspaper Guild staff began pulling together research and resources on restructuring scenarios. Carol Rothman, the Guild’s secretary-treasurer, has made herself available to run through various scenarios related to the debt restructuring and to answer questions about what might happen next.

“The Guild, with help from CWA, has been proactive in addressing bankruptcies in our industry. Being named to the creditors’ committee in five cases is one example. We must get our members, locals and contracts through to the other end of this process, with some confidence that they can influence the results,” Rothman said.

It’s important to note that, unlike many of the high-profile media company bankruptcies, the company that operates our papers is not planning to file for bankruptcy reorganization.  Rather, the MediaNews holding company — Affiliated Media Inc. – is filing. In general, a holding company controls a company’s stock and oversees top management but does not run day-to-day operations. According to the company’s statements, the debt to be restructured is related largely to past purchases of newspapers, not bills to local vendors at individual properties.

Union leaders from MediaNews papers around the nation are meeting this weekend in San Francisco to discuss this news, its consequences, and general bargaining issues. It’s no secret that MediaNews has struggled mightily over this past year to make debt payments, with many layoffs and cuts as a result. We are heartened by management’s portrayal of this debt reorganization as a change for the better – and are prepared to work together to rebuild our industry.

If you have any specific questions, please don’t hesitate to contact your stewards or local representatives. We will pass along any news or details as soon as we have them.

Of course, we start 2010 with a step back – another pay reduction that’s part of the company’s cost-cutting plan from last year. Though this cut will be smaller than the last, we understand it will still significantly impact you and your families.

We share your disappointment in this, and we’re committed to working with management on ways to improve the company’s outlook.

PAY MINIMUMS

Please check your most recent and upcoming pay stubs. As of the Dec. 24 paycheck, no employee in the unit should be earning less than the contract pay minimums – $18.75 per hour for journalists and $15.20 for support staff. If there’s a problem with your check, please see your shop steward or contact unit president Eric Louie.

HOLIDAY PAY
The importance of checking pay stubs came up recently with the Thanksgiving holiday, when at least two employees did not receive the correct holiday pay. The company made adjustments on subsequent paychecks, and the Guild will be following up to make sure other employees who spent the holiday putting out the paper are paid correctly.

This also underscores the need for all of us to be aware of what our contract requires the company to provide, and say something if those guarantees are not fulfilled. If you have questions about our contract, or simply want a copy, check your office’s Guild bulletin board, talk to your shop steward, or contact Eric Louie.

GUILD POST-HOLIDAY PARTY

This will be an especially important year for our Guild unit as we head toward negotiating a new contract later in the year. To begin 2010 on the right foot, the Guild is hosting a post-holiday party next week for all newspaper units in the local, including the San Jose Mercury News and San Francisco Chronicle, who will also be negotiating their work agreements this year.

Come by and hang out with your co-workers and others from our industry:

7-11 p.m.
Saturday, Jan. 9
The Tempest
433 Natoma St., San Francisco

FREE EATS * Cash bar * Featuring the homegrown musical talents of Kevin Fagan, theHEAVYthin and other special guests. (Music begins at 9 p.m.)

Once again, happy New Year to you all,

Eric Louie
Unit president

Once the plan is completed toward the end of the first quarter of 2010, they added, the company expects to have a “manageable level of debt” and will look forward to “a changing but exciting future.”

The economic downturn at MediaNews has brought reduced budgets, layoffs, suspended 401(k) contributions, higher health care premiums, paycuts and unpaid furloughs.

But in a year-end message to employees, Singleton and Lodovic said it’s premature to start discussing recovery in compensation and staffing.

“The company must see clear evidence of improving economic conditions before such decisions are made,” they said.

Read the memo on MediaWorkers.org.