From Karl Fischer, Sara Steffens:

We know you’ve had other things on your mind, but end of day MONDAY is
the deadline for our anonymous salary survey. We’ve had 70 responses so
far and we’re shooting for at least 100 so we can get a decent sense of the
range of pay. So head on over to the website and click SALARY SURVEY.

ROTTEN WEEK (By Karl):

I know it’s been a rotten week, with the fear of layoffs hanging over us and
buyout offers now due March 4. And it doesn’t help that our bosses don’t feel
inclined to share much about the size or depth of the staff reduction they
need to make — more on that below.

But take heart. No matter what happens, most of us know we will be OK,
eventually. You just have to plan a little, and develop some idea of what it
might be like to not work here, even if you think it won’t happen to you. We
need to look out for each other now more than ever; if you know someone
who is struggling to cope with the stress please take a little time to talk.
It’s natural to feel frightened but the more we communicate, the better.

We also want you to know there is help, and you are not alone. You have us,
for starters.

We on the guild organizing committee are committed to helping every
guild-eligible worker at BANG-EB who leaves in this reduction land on their
feet. Even though we’re not formally recognized at this point, the guild can
help in small ways — and sometimes a little goes a long way. At other Bay
Area newspapers, the guild has helped laid off workers search for new jobs,
file for unemployment insurance and other benefits, and even helped out a
little materially for those who are destitute or with extreme needs.

POST-BUYOUT/LAYOFF RESOURCES:

We haven’t nailed down the date, but later this week we plan to hold a talk
at Civic Arts Education (the building just around the corner from the Contra
Costa Times) to learn about resources out there to help people land on their
feet after buyouts or layoffs. Watch your e-mail for more details, probably
Monday afternoon.

At minimum we will have some guild folks who have helped journalists at
other newspapers in the region work through recent workforce reductions.
We also hope to have some journalists and former journalists who have
taken buyouts or been laid off to talk about their experiences and, in the
case of buyouts, talk about how they made their decisions and whether
they have any regrets.

JOB LISTINGS:

By the way, the San Jose Newspaper Guild has a pretty good job board
with links to journalism job web sites — and we soon hope to offer similar
listings at www.onebigbang.org.

Life does continue after the buyout, and after the layoffs that will likely
follow. So will our organizing efforts. I don’t know what will happen, but
it’s been an honor to work with all of you. I have learned so much about my
coworkers during the past three months. You have surprised me often with
your courage and gratified me with your interest — thank you so much for
caring enough to consider the guild.

I really think it can help us in the long run, and I’ve heard from a lot of
you who are starting to feel the same way. As of tonight, 103 of about 170
guild-eligible workers in the former CCN papers receive this email update.
If everyone on this list committed today to sign a union card and vote in
the guild, coupled with the support we expect from our colleagues at the
former ANG papers, we would handily win the election. That’s not to say this
would happen — there are a handful of non-supporters and a vast tract of
undecideds on my list — but it’s a fair indication of real progress. We’re
not ready to drop cards yet, because there are people out there who still
have questions. If you are one of those people, do not hesitate to chime in.
Don’t stay silent on something this important. Let’s talk.

LOOKING FOR MORE INFORMATION (By Sara):

At first, we were relieved — glad to see MediaNews offering buyouts, instead
of turning immediately layoffs.

Then we turned scared and sad — about who we stand to lose, and what the
losses will mean to our newspaper in the long run.

It took awhile to start getting mad.

The Bay Area News Group isn’t alone in cutting staff. These are lousy times
in the newspaper business, and lots of other companies are enduring waves of
buyouts and layoffs.

Still, ours is a particularly tough predicament — we’ll spend the next week
agonizing over whether to apply for a buyout, or risk getting laid off, and
ending up with a severance package worth half as much. Trouble is, we have
no idea how deep the cuts might go, and thus no way to assess our personal
risk.

Judging by the letter that circulated through the newsroom Friday, I’m not
the only one who’s frustrated. The brief note simply asked John Armstrong
for more details. In just a few hours, 32 folks in our newsrooms had signed
their names. It wasn’t a guild thing — but it was great to see coworkers
coming together and standing up for each other.

Betsy Mason and I went upstairs to deliver the note to John, who took some
time to talk about it. John believes that any range of possible job cuts will be
too broad to be useful, since numbers depend on the salaries of those who
apply for a buyout. Read: some of us make three or four times as much as
others.

We respectfully disagree that this information would not be of use — even a
broad range, or a dollar figure, would mean more than nothing at all.

John did say he’ll consider the matter further over the weekend, and see if
operating directors can share any more quantitative or qualitative information.

We’ll keep you updated if we hear anything.

WHAT WE KNOW: Not much.

There’s no good estimate for the depth of the job reduction. Repeated
questioning at various shops has gotten us into the ballpark, a little bit.
Based on revenue projections, the company has a dollar figure to carve, not
a body count. They don’t know exactly how many people will have to go — it
depends on who takes buyouts. At one meeting, Kevin said in response to a
question that he believed the cut would be much less than one-third of the
newsroom. John Armstrong later declined to confirm that number.

Another, sketchier report at another site suggested the volume would be
significantly less, perhaps half that. But we have no real way of knowing.

We know that our target is separate from the Merc’s target.

We know that reviews and raises will continue as scheduled, and that there
are no current plans to merge newsrooms, consolidate mastheads or to
eliminate publications. All that could change, of course. It sounds like there
is no reorganization plan yet to deal with the aftermath of buyouts or layoffs.

To clarify a few questions that have come up about buyouts:

* If you apply for a buyout, expect to get one. They will try to take every
application they can, so that people who want to stay aren’t laid off. In
other words: only file the form if you’re sure it’s what you want.

* Partial years of service will be pro-rated when calculating weeks of pay.

* They will not reject buyout offers, then turn around and lay off the
applicants.

If you have other questions, please send them, and we’ll try to find out
anything we can.

FAN MAIL (By Sara):

Our communities are taking notice of what’s going on. Every time I’m out
and about, someone asks how we’re doing, and passes along their sincere
condolences to the staff. This week, I got this note in my inbox from a
source I’d not heard from in awhile:

Hello, Sara. Saw the news about the buy-outs. Just wanted to send
along words of encouragement. You made the point very well about
the unfairness of the offer. This may be a rock-and-a-hard-place era
for the news business. But there’s absolutely no sound business or
moral reason to withhold from good and loyal employees sufficient
information about the full picture so they can make a decision that’s
wise for themselves, and, ultimately, the papers.

As a long-time reader of the various editions (online), I want to
demonstrate our continuing faith in the Contra Costa Times by
subscribing to the paper edition.

Wishing you, your colleagues, and our community paper(s) all the best.

YOU’RE INVITED (By Sara):

By Friday, March 7, we ought to know a lot more about who’s staying and
going. Mark your calendars and plan to join us that night in Oakland for
“One Big Bash,” a mixer for the entire newsroom staff of BANG-East Bay.

E-mail me for details at modernsara@gmail.com

Karl Fischer: It’s finally here — Starting now, an anonymous salary survey
for BANG-EB employees is live on the revamped OneBigBANG.org website.
Please pop over some time before Monday 2/25 and click on the survey link
in the upper right-hand corner.

I’ve heard a lot of people wonder how well or poorly they are compensated
relative to their peers. Here’s your opportunity to find out. I hope most of
you will use it and encourage your friends to use it.

This survey is not scientific, but the more who try it, the more accurate it
will be. It’s anonymous, so we have no way of telling who votes. We can
tell if someone votes more than once, but that’s about it. So you’re on the
honor system.

Salary parity remains a top concern for folks around the company. We all
would like better pay, of course, but that’s a separate issue. People want
to know that they’re paid fairly, relative to others in the company who do
similar work. And there is reason to wonder. I’ve heard a lot of different
salary numbers while making the rounds, and from what little I have heard,
pay is all over the map. We’ve never had a pay scale at the Contra Costa
papers, so we have no real sense of what compensation we should accept
for the work we do.

Knowing where we’re all starting from — through this survey — is a first
step toward knowing what is fair and realistic pay in our company.

Traditionally, the only way to get a large raise is to get an outside job offer.
If management wants to keep you, they bump you up. There’s nothing too
wrong with that system; employees with the most to offer wind up with
better pay. But it doesn’t reward loyalty. Nor does it reward naivete — if
you assume the company will just take care of you, you will wind up behind.

The adage that you never get treated better than the day you walk in the
door applies here, and it makes sense. The company must offer competitive
wages to newcomers or they won’t accept the job. What is competitive can
change rapidly, particularly in the Bay Area. We know, for example, that the
company currently offers a new reporter about $40,000 — considerably more
than when I got hired.

It’s good that management pays attention to the need to raise the starting
point. Trouble is, the cost-of-living raises that are offered during our annual
performance reviews often fail to keep up. They’re not bad — last year most
people got 2.5 to 3 percent — but it’s a very slow rise. In many cases, that
means workers who’ve been around for years either make less than newly
hired employees or are just cracking the salary that newcomers walk in with.

Management has worked on these issues for years, and there’s a continuing
campaign to bring up the pay of those editors deem substantially underpaid.
Still, it would undoubtedly help to raise the known bottom line for all workers,
not just newcomers or the grossly underpaid.

This is one area where a guild contract could help. Most contain minimum pay
scales that relate compensation to years of service. They don’t prevent one
from negotiating an “overscale” salary — minimum is the key word. It just
raises the floor for everyone. Click here for the survey.

WE NEED LEADERS: For many of us, talking union felt pretty scary at first.
But after a month of being pretty open about my role in all this, I can happily
report that I’ve suffered no ill effects. And I know my co-chairs Karl Fischer
and Michael Manekin can say the same thing. Nothing bad happens to those
who speak out in favor of the guild.

And if you’re ready to step up and go public yourself, you can really help out.
Lending your name to the effort shows our coworkers that it’s perfectly safe
to talk about, and ask questions about, what a union would mean to our
newsroom. Who you are matters too: as our coworkers start to see the truly
talented and hardworking journalists who are helping and supporting us, they
will understand this effort in a new way.

Here are a few simple things you can do right now:

* Wear a GO GUILD button in the office, every day. Jet me an e-mail, and I’ll
rush one into your hands. More and more of us are doing this. We hope that
you will too.

* Talk to your coworkers about what we’re doing and why. If they’re at all
interested in learning more, get a home e-mail so we can add them to our
email list. Direct them either to me or to Karl.

* Post a comment at the end of this newsletter. Sign your name. Or better yet,
write a testimonial for the website on why you believe organizing is the right
choice for our newsrooms. We’ll take your picture and add it to our ever-growing
gallery of personal voices. And yeah, some of ours are long, but yours doesn’t
have to be.

– Sara Steffens

COMING CLEAN ABOUT THE OUTSIDERS: OK, I have a confession to make.
Management has it half-right about outsiders coming in, trying to turn you all
into dues-paying guild members.

There are thousands of concerned fellow journalists involved in this conspiracy.

Among them: The Mercury News guild, which works with us because they worry
about their own future. They saw what happened when MediaNews folded the
ANG newsrooms in with the nonunion CCN — they decertified the ANG guild,
and all those workers lost the ability to negotiate with a collective voice.

Will the Merc be next? It could be. We’re owned by the same corporate parent.
We all work in the region. And managers can more easily meet cost-cutting
goals if employees lack the legal ability to protest.

Chronicle workers have similar concerns, but with a longer view. They know
that if the Merc contract vanishes, they alone will work for substantially better
pay and benefits than the rest of the region’s newspaper employees. That will
weaken their ability to hold on to what they have — if nobody else gets it,
why should they?

And the national guild definitely worries about what’s happening here. If key
newspaper contracts die in the liberal, expensive and sophisticated Bay Area,
what does that portend for newspaper pay and benefits nationwide?

You can see why they want to help. I don’t think they are “outsiders.” They’re
fellow journalists, working for the good of journalists everywhere, and at least
in this way our interests align with theirs.

If we don’t do something now, at our company, we’re not the only ones at risk.
All newspaper workers in the region stand to lose bargaining strength, and in
the process their ability to help determine fair compensation for their work.
That is why you see these “outsiders,” as management puts it, supporting us
as we work to organize BANG-EB. We need their help, and they need us.
Without us, it will be harder for them to cling to decent salaries and benefits.

We are a sapling on the precipice of a mudslide. We can fall as far as gravity
will take us, or we can catch and stick upon the roots of established neighbors.
How far we slide depends at least in part upon our actions now. So take the
salary survey. It’s a first step toward sticking someplace uphill.

– Karl Fischer

MARK YOUR CALENDARS, ONE BIG BASH: We’re throwing a party. A big one,
open to all newsroom employees in the BANG-East Bay, with special appearances
by a few of our former coworkers. No agenda, no strong-arming, just a chance to
meet your peers and have a drink or two. You don’t have to think any certain way
to come, and significant others are more than welcome. Mark your calendars for
Friday, March 7, and watch for an Evite in your inboxes this week.

DON’T FORGET: “THE FUTURE OF THE NEWSROOM“, 2/20

Don’t miss this timely discussion, subtitled “New opportunities, collateral damage,
and effects on journalists in the digital era.” It takes place from 6:30-8 p.m. this
Wednesday (Feb. 20) at UC Berkeley, at North Gate Hall, Room 105. It’s free.

Speakers include Salon.com managing editor Jeanne Carstensen, California Media
Project director Louis Freedberg, San Jose Mercury News guild rep Luther Jackson,
and Matt Mansfield, deputy managing editor at the Merc. Click here for more info.

Thanks,

Karl Fischer
Sara Steffens