51: August/September 2008

Buyout shrinks newsroom by 24
Pearson takes over as Local 51 president
Save the date: Membership meeting
Contract bargaining progresses amid buyout
Tunkieicz says goodbye to newspapers
2 Guild leaders left between buyouts
Guild, company settle over MKE jobs
Leaving during buyout is bittersweet

Buyout shrinks newsroom by 24

More than 470 years.

That is the amount of experience leaving the Journal Sentinel newsroom in the latest round of buyouts.

In the company’s second voluntary buyout program in nine months, 24 more valuable employees have decided to leave. Of the departing employees, length of service at our newspaper ranged from two years to six people who had been here more than 30 years.

That’s a lot of value lost, a ton of institutional knowledge that will be impossible to recapture. It’s also 24 employees leaving on top of the 22 who took the buyout last fall. That’s 46 people who have left our newsroom in the past nine months.

Many of the employees who took the most recent buyout left in early August. The rest will be departing over the next couple of months.

In both buyouts, the Guild worked with people to get questions answered and provide information. Soon after the second round of buyouts was announced in early July, Guild representatives compiled and distributed two sets of Q&As, answering basic questions from members and from Guild leaders. Forums were held both for day-shift and night-shift workers to answer questions and concerns.

In the most recent buyout, the company announced a target of about 10% — approximately 130 employees. The newsroom total is in that 10% range. Whether involuntary layoffs will be needed remained unclear at press time.

Pearson takes over as Local 51 president

Milwaukee Newspaper Guild President Amy Rinard has left the Journal Sentinel in the current round of buyouts, turning the local’s top position over to Greg Pearson.

Pearson will fill out the remainder of Rinard’s term, which runs through Sept. 30. He plans to run for a full one-year term as president at the Guild’s annual meeting, set for noon Sept. 15 at Turner Hall. Members also will elect a 1st vice president, 2nd vice president, secretary, treasurer and five at-large board members at that meeting.

This is the first time in our local’s 24-year history that a vice president has officially replaced a departing president during a term. In 2004, Pearson took over many of the president’s duties after Lauria Lynch-German left the paper, but she retained her title as an unemployed member for the last few weeks of her term.

Rinard’s 10-month tenure was the shortest of any Local 51 president, but hardly the least eventful. The previous round of buyouts was announced on her second day in office, last October. In between that buyout and this one, Journal Sentinel Inc. shut down the youth oriented weekly MKE. No other Milwaukee Guild president has ever had to deal with three major downsizings in his or her entire tenure, let alone a single term.

On top of all that, when former President Jennie Tunkieicz left the paper in May, Rinard picked up her duties as bargaining chair as well.

Rinard was a Waukesha County Bureau reporter. She previously served three terms as 2nd vice president, in charge of membership and mobilizing, and this was her second stint on the bargaining committee.

Pearson, meanwhile, has been the Guild’s point person in responding to the downsizing. He was in his fourth non-consecutive term as 1st vice president, the longest anyone has served as our grievance chair. He is a day copy editor and previously served four terms as a steward leader and two terms as an at-large board member.

Also moving up, with the approval of the local’s Executive Board, were letters editor Sonya Jongsma Knauss, from 2nd vice president to 1st vice president; day copy editor Karen Samelson, from secretary to 2nd vice president; and features writer Jan Uebelherr, from board member to secretary.

Knauss was in her first term as a vice president, after filling an unexpired term as an at-large board member. Samelson, who was also our human rights chair, was elected last fall to replace Knauss on the board, then was named secretary after metro reporter Sarah Carr left the paper. Uebelherr was in her third term as a board member and is also our social chair. All three will serve through Sept. 30.

Other business at the meeting will include updates on downsizing and bargaining, our annual vote to keep dues at the current low rate, and the election of delegates to the international Guild’s sector conference and the annual convention of our parent union, the Communications Workers of America. Lunch will be served.

Save the date

Election of officers, annual vote to keep dues at their low rate and post-buyout issues are on the agenda.

Contract bargaining progresses amid buyout

Bargaining on our next contract with Journal Sentinel Inc. is off to a smooth start, despite turbulence that has buffeted both the newsroom and the Milwaukee Newspaper Guild's bargaining committee.

We started bargaining in the middle of a company-wide downsizing, and we were on our third bargaining chair just one month after negotiations started. Both of those are firsts for our local.

Nonetheless, talks have moved at least as fast as in previous years, if not quicker, even though part of the July agenda was replaced by off-the-record conversations about how the buyouts were proceeding and whether involuntary staff cuts could be avoided.

During the first session, July 9, the two sides exchanged proposals. The Guild called for a new contract that would offer greater job security, more extensive training, a freeze on the employee share of health care premiums, higher mileage reimbursements, more time off for all employees and more benefits for part-timers. By contrast, the company sought to drastically cut the severance benefits we would receive in an economic downsizing; to eliminate all contractual guarantees on health care, pensions, mileage and tuition reimbursements, as well as all contractual protections against discrimination and harassment; to freeze night, weekend, holiday and production differentials; and to end extra pay for filling in for managers or for working Christmas Eve and New Year's Eve.

Neither side presented a complete wage proposal at that session, recognizing that wages are typically among the last issues settled. Following the normal pattern of tackling the easiest issues first, negotiators first identified the areas where both sides were in agreement or close to it, then moved on to mainly non-economic issues.

Tentative agreements reached during July would:

- Expand our rights to be notified of corrections and of personal attacks. As with letters to the editor and corrections published in the Journal Sentinel, employees would receive advance notification of online corrections and negative reader comments on moderated forums. For unmoderated forums, the company would establish a system to review and discuss comments that employees consider to be unfairly disparaging.

- State that employees are expected, not just encouraged, to file expense reports and differential forms promptly, and that managers are similarly expected to process them promptly. Guild negotiators did not accept management's original proposal to let the company refuse to pay expenses that were turned in late.

- Strengthen the Guild's voice in recommending cafeteria improvements.

- Keep current contract language governing funeral leave, jury duty leave, employee records, byline rights, health and safety, and banning strikes and lockouts, among other provisions. Also, relatively minor changes were agreed upon in some of the sections dealing with overtime, time off, expense reimbursements, transfers, temporary employees, interns and union-management relations. August's agenda called for discussions of contract language dealing with transfers, training, drug testing, diversity, ethics, filling in for editors, overtime, evaluations and Guild jurisdiction. Those sessions were scheduled to take place after this newsletter's deadline; for the most current updates, see the Guild's blog

Also in August, our negotiating team's line-up changed when Guild President Amy Rinard took the buyout. Rinard had stepped in as bargaining chair in late May, when former President Jennie Tunkieicz left the company after guiding most of our preparations for this year's negotiations. Our Executive Board named metro reporter Larry Sandler to move up from vice chair to chair of the bargaining committee, while Rinard agreed to stay on in retirement to assist the committee.

Sandler is the local's most experienced negotiator, having been involved in bargaining our last four contracts and numerous interim agreements. He was our chief negotiator on issues related to the 1995 merger of The Milwaukee Journal and the Milwaukee Sentinel, and he led the last stage of bargaining on our sixth contract, after former President Jack Norman left the paper in fall 2000. Sandler also has held a variety of Guild offices, including a record five terms as vice president.

Tunkieicz says goodbye to newspapers

Dear Newspaper Industry:

We’ve had a long relationship that at one time was good for both of us, but I’m leaving you. And you need to know: It’s not me, it’s you. You’ve changed.

When we were first together, you cared about what I did and that allowed me to flourish. I didn’t mind the long nights at the computer screen or at meetings, rallies or events because I knew you cared enough to give the story the space it deserved. You believed in me and what we were together. I willingly worked the overtime and you paid me for it because you wanted the news in the paper. You needed me then — we needed each other — and I felt loved.

But, well, you got greedy. You wanted more. More stories, different stories, stories online, photos, video, more of my time. I gave and gave. And you took back. You took back my overtime pay. You took back health care benefits. You cut back page space. You took back and took back until there was so little left. You even wanted my job security so that you could cast me aside like an old used rag whenever it was convenient for you.

Let’s be honest — you left me first. You thought you didn’t need me anymore because you have the Internet, a sultry mistress. But, without people like me, she will have little to give. She’ll be empty.

Please realize what you have with all the others who are still with you. They continue to give, but you have to start to love them back. This can’t be all about you. You need them, too. Pay them what they deserve, reward them for their new training and the extra time it takes to do these new tasks. Treat them with dignity and respect.

I hope, too, that those who remain stick together, work together and continue to draw from the strength that the union gives them. Together they can face you, but separately, they will struggle.

I really do hope you can change. Democracy needs the press. The world needs its watchdogs. You need good, happy and healthy reporters, copy editors, online staff, editorial assistants, photographers, designers and the rest. Don’t let them slip away as a result of your Wall Street-driven self-indulgence.

The reality is that you just don’t know who you are anymore. You’re more concerned about your profit margin than providing news to readers. And I just can’t live that way, so I had to break up with you. I’ve found a new love. That doesn’t mean that there won’t be a place in my heart for you anymore — I will always love you for what you used to be.

Goodbye,

Jennie

2 Guild leaders left between buyouts

Although the focus has been on those leaving the Journal Sentinel in the most recent buyout, two Milwaukee Newspaper Guild leaders left the paper between buyouts. In May, bargaining chair Jennie Tunkieicz resigned as a Racine County Bureau reporter to become the top aide to new Kenosha County Executive Jim Kreuser.

Tunkieicz served three terms as president, after two terms as secretary and three terms as 2nd vice president. She also was our bargaining chair for the seventh contract (the one in effect) and for the health care reopener talks that led to an extension of the sixth contract. Before joining our local, she had been president of the Kenosha Guild and of the Guild’s Midwest District Council.

In June, board member Kawanza Newson left her job as a metro reporter to become spokeswoman for the Milwaukee Health Department.

Newson was the local’s longest-serving secretary, elected to three full terms after being named to fill an unexpired term, then returned to the board as an at-large member after day copy editor Karen Samelson moved up to secretary. Newson also had served as our social chair.

Other current and former Guild activists leaving during the latest buyout include copy editor Dave Lee, communications chair and former steward; online producer Heather Gergen, Webmaster and former bargaining committee member; editorial cartoonist Stuart Carlson, a steward; and television critic Joanne Weintraub, who served on the merger bargaining committee.

Guild, company settle over MKE jobs

The Milwaukee Newspaper Guild has reached a settlement with Journal Sentinel Inc. after the jobs of five MKE employees were eliminated. Four of the MKE workers were Guild members; the fifth was a supervisor not represented by the Guild.

Leaving during buyout is bittersweet

Two presidents and three bargaining committee chairs since October. Sadly, the leadership upheaval we’ve seen in our Guild is not unique among Newspaper Guild locals across the country. As newspapers shed workers as a reaction to plummeting revenue, turnover — voluntary and otherwise — among newsroom employees is an epidemic. I never thought that, only eight months after 22 people left the newsroom in a round of buyouts, we’d see another buyout announced in July that again raised the specter of permanent layoffs.

Amy Rinard

And I didn’t really think I’d be walking out of the newsroom for the last time on Aug. 8.

But, honestly, I’d been hoping to do just that for more than a year.

It was my dream for a long time to finesse an early-retirement kind of thing when I turned 55 on Aug. 1. For me, the buyout came as a timely opportunity.

But deciding whether to take the buyout offer was very difficult for many people who had not thought about leaving their jobs. They had to make a life-changing decision in a short period of time.

Then there were the people who “got the talk” just as the application deadline was winding down, urging them, not too subtly, to give the buyout offer a really serious second look.

It all made for a pretty subdued newsroom sendoff for us buyoutees, the possibility of layoffs hanging in the air even as they brought in the sheet cakes.

Now, just as the Journal Sentinel goes on from here, so does the Milwaukee Newspaper Guild.

The Guild is strong and in good hands.

But more people are needed to share the work of protecting the rights of newsroom employees, especially in perilous economic times.

If you’re a member, become active in the Guild. Your ideas, insight, experience and energy are valuable. Step up and use them for the common good of your newsroom colleagues.

Being active in the Guild has been one of the best experiences of my life. It changed me for the better: Gave me new confidence, blessed me with friends I hope to keep forever, gave me a sense of accomplishment and contribution and revived a social activism that had been mostly dormant since my college days.

If you are not a dues-paying Guild member (you know who you are), join now.

No, make that JOIN NOW!

Numbers do count. At a time when we are bargaining a new contract, there is strength in numbers.

I can say “we” are bargaining a new contract because the Guild board has approved my continued membership on the bargaining committee.

I’m grateful for the chance to stay involved and be of service to the Guild as I take some time to figure out the next chapter of my life.

As I write this, it’s been a week since I cleaned out my desk and said goodbye to my wonderful colleagues in the Waukesha Bureau.

Twenty-three years after my first day on the job at the Milwaukee Sentinel and 30 years after the thrill of landing my first job as a reporter at a northern Wisconsin weekly, there’s no question what I miss the most.

You.