Newsletter of the Milwaukee Newspaper Guild
Membership meeting
- WHEN: Noon, Tuesday, Dec. 1.
- WHERE: Turner Hall
- AGENDA: Update on Gannett and the buyout. Vote on bylaws change. Lunch will be served.
Holiday party
Mark your calendars: The Milwaukee Newspaper Guild’s annual holiday party will take place at 5:30 p.m. Friday, Dec. 18, at Turner Hall Restaurant. All newsroom employees — including management — are invited. Evites and more details to follow soon.
Gannett sale means more changes coming
For the second time in less than a year, control of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel is expected to change hands, causing uncertainty once again for the more than 100 people who make up the bargaining unit of Local 51 of TheNewspaper Guild.
The Oct. 7 announcement that Journal Media Group had agreed to sell theJournal Sentinel and its other 14 newspaper holdings to Gannett Co. sent a shockwave through a newsroom already shaken by a recent and unexpected change of ownership.
A month later, JMG announced it was offering buyouts, the second time it has done so this year. The move came despite JMG bragging of no debt and a $10 million cash surplus at the completion of the deal between Journal Communications Inc. and E.W. ScrippsCo. to swap broadcast holdings for newspaper holdings.
At the time of the swap, the newly formed JMG was touted as a stand-alone news gathering operation that would withstand the downward trend in revenue for newspapers and digital outlets.
CEO Tim Stautberg, who came from Scripps, and Publisher Betsy Brenner both hailed the swap as the beginning of a new era for the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel and JMG’s newly acquired newspapers.
It was at that time that then-Journal Communications CEO Steve Smith made his infamous comment, “Everyone wins.”
As Journal Sentinel employees soon learned, they were not among the winners. Before the swap was completed, Journal Sentinel reduced its staff with a buyout offer that once again put the onus of the company’s financial struggles on the backs of its workers.
Employees who owned stock in the Journal Sentinel were urged strongly to give approval to the company to make the swap mostly on the grounds that a new newspaper-based business with no debt and $10 million in cash would be able to
compete for years.
Many in the company were told JMG would have two years to prove itself, that any newspaper chain thinking of adding JMG to its holdings would be socked with an enormous tax hit.
As it turned out, Stautberg was receiving calls from companies looking to purchase JMG almost as soon as the ink was dry on the new deal. The eventual high bidder, Gannett, first approached JMG in July. Under terms of the sale, JMG shareholders will receive cash of $12 per share, a premium of 44.6% over the $8.30 closing price when the deal was announced.
The biggest winners in JMG are Smith, now chairman of the board, and Stautberg. Smith, who orchestrated the swap with Scripps before retiring as CEO, stands to make $1.99 million on the sale of 165,656 shares. Stautberg would make $1.8
million and will walk away from JMG with a golden parachute of $4.56 million.
Shareholders of both companies must approve the sale to Gannett, but that is considered a formality.
The McLean, Va.-based publisher of USA Today and 92 local dailies in the United States is purchasing the Journal Sentinel and the 14 other daily newspapers for $280 million. The Journal Sentinel building will no longer serve as corporate headquarters; Gannett has not said whether it will be sold.
Gannett CEO Robert Dickey told the Journal Sentinel newsroom after the sale was announced that he expected staffing levels to remain the same and local editors to remain in charge of local coverage.
“Our plans for Milwaukee are going to be that local editors make local decisions on coverage, on how they use their resources,” Dickey said.
During a presentation to JMG employees on the same day he met with newsroom staff, Dickey said Gannett intended to honor all union contracts in place with JMG. Local 51 of the Newspaper Guild has a contract that expires Dec. 31, 2016.
Since the announcement of the sale, Gannett has provided very little information on what changes it has in store for the Journal Sentinel.
Gannett owns a slew of papers in Wisconsin, including the Green Bay Press-Gazette, Sheboygan Press and Appleton Post-Crescent. The Wisconsin papers ceded newspaper design/layout authority to one of Gannett’s production hubs, in Des Moines, Iowa. Their newspaper websites use a template very different than what the Journal Sentinel has used and could result in a major change in how digital content is presented.
Local 51’s bargaining unit of 102 includes reporters, copy editors, photographers, designers, graphic artists and digital staff.
Guild kicks off Don Walker Scholarship
The Milwaukee Newspaper Guild took a leading role in launching the Don Walker Memorial Scholarship this fall.
The Guild pledged the first leadership gift to the scholarship, paving the way for other organizations and individuals todo the same. In addition, the Guild also sponsored the kickoff event on Oct. 14 at Buck Bradley’s, where Local 51 President Tom Silverstein spoke on behalf of the union.
The goal of the Don Walker Memorial Scholarship is to disburse at least $1,000 in scholarships annually to students at Marquette University or the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee who are pursuing a career in journalism.
The Milwaukee Press Club Endowment, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit foundation affiliated with the Milwaukee Press Club, is administering the endowment for the Don Walker Memorial Scholarship.
The organizing committee for the scholarship includes one current Guild member and one retired Guild member.
The committee set an initial goal of raising $25,000 to be invested in the endowment, which would produce about$1,000 each year and make the scholarship sustainable. So far, more than $30,000 has been raised for the scholarship and invested in the endowment. Fundraising efforts are ongoing with the expectation that as the scholarship grows, so will either the amount disbursed or the number of students who receive it each year.
The scholarship had the blessing of the Walker family, including Don’s wife, Sue Walker, who was regularly updated on the committee’s progress.
“This was a tremendous effort on the part of so many to extend Don’s legacy,” Sue Walker wrote in a note to supporters. “Thank you all for your love and support and for the opportunity this offers future journalism students.”
For updates on the scholarship fund, go to donwalkerscholarship.org.
Watch your check: Pay period, payday have changed
The Journal Sentinel has changed pay dates for all employees, to conform to the rest of Journal Media Group. Pay dates have moved from Thursday to Friday; the pay week runs Monday to Sunday, instead of Sunday to Saturday.
The change was scheduled to take place for the week of Oct. 12 but was pushed back a pay week.
The pay period ending Nov. 8 will have 15 days in it. If you worked on Sunday, Oct. 25, be sure to check if you were paid for that day. If you worked 11 days in that pay period but were only paid for 10, please see your supervisor. It’s also possible that you might work (and be paid for) only nine days in the following pay period.
On the subject of getting paid, as the holidays are getting closer, remember to file for your overtime, differentials and holiday pay. Here’s a reminder: If you work on the holiday (Thanksgiving, Christmas Day, New Year’s Day), you get paid overtime and the $8 holiday differential. If you work a night shift on Christmas Eve or New Year’s Eve (half your hours after 5 p.m.), you get overtime pay.
If you work five days in a holiday week, but not the holiday, you get paid overtime for that fifth day. If you work five days including the holiday, you get paid overtime for the holiday.
Reminder: Make sure you take all of your vacation before the end of the year. Under the current contract, we are no longer allowed to roll over vacation into the next year.
Steward system updated to reflect staffing
The Milwaukee Newspaper Guild has updated the steward system to account for personnel losses in recent years.
The biggest changes are combining the design, graphic and photos staffs into one steward group and consolidating columnist, editorial and watchdog into a steward group.
The stewards are your go-to resource for workplace concerns and questions. If they can’t answer your question, they will find someone who can.
Your new steward likely already introduced himself or herself to you, but if not, please contact Guild secretary Tom Content.
We are what makes the newspaper great
From the president
Now that the shockwaves have subsided and we have all had time to digest news of our paper being sold to Gannett, we need to think about the future.
We may not have control over some of the changes Gannett has in store, but we do have the power and capacity to make sure we are heard when it comes to any editorial changes.
If there’s one thing Local 51 has always stressed — as much as any financial consideration — it is that our paper remain independent of corporate influence with a commitment to journalism and resolve not to forsake our ethics for an extra dollar of revenue.
This will be a new experience for all of us.
Gannett is a large corporation whose bottom-line approach can be seen in many of its publications. Those of us out in the field have witnessed the loss of independence that Gannett papers across Wisconsin have endured.
We will take the word of Gannett CEO Robert Dickey that more local control is being afforded the company’s newspapers and digital operations, but it would be foolish of us not to be cynical about forthcoming changes.
The Guild needs to be out in front in pushing Gannett to recognize the great work that we do, the commitment we have to good journalism and the ideas we have to make our newspaper great.
We should all feel good about the labor contract we have that protects us from some of the awful things we’ve seen throughout the newspaper business and allows us to feel comfortable in our workplace.
We don’t have the right to tell Gannett how to staff the Journal Sentinel, but we will maintain our right to have the same health insurance and benefits the rest of the company receives, an established pay scale and vacation plan, a guaranteed grievance and arbitration policy, and a severance package.
According to the sale document, Gannett has promised to keep staffing at its current levels for at least 12 months after the sale is complete. Unfortunately, Journal Media Group has forced departments across the company to slash budgets and seek buyouts that will stress already depleted staffing levels.
The Journal Sentinel has long been a place that attracts committed journalists who are seeking something more than an ordinary career. We have had an influx of young, talented journalists enter our doors, and it would be a shame if they weren’t able to continue down the path they’ve started.
This should be a place where people stay because they love the work, not leave because the commitment to stock price is greater than it is to the great work we’re doing. Gannett needs to know employee retention is what will make our paper profitable.
Know this: Your union is committed to saving jobs and protecting your rights. Let’s stay united and show Gannett we are what makes the paper great.