After 25 Years, Dayton Guild Members to Vote on New Contract

Members of TNG-CWA Local 34157 built a "different kind of union" and now have a new tentative agreement after 25 years.

Nearly 26 years since negotiating the local's last contract, the never-say-die Dayton Newspaper Guild-CWA has reached a tentative agreement with the Dayton Daily News.

"The company kept trying to do things to divide us, and they could not divide us," said Lou Grieco, president of TNG-CWA Local 34157.

Until this week, bargaining sessions came and went for years, with the company making concessionary demands the Guild refused to meet. Last year, members voted down a pay raise — by a 61-3 landslide — because it came with so many strings attached.

The tentative contract includes arbitration rights, a big victory for workers. "Without arbitration, we could go to the NLRB, but they wouldn't always take our cases," Grieco said. "Now we'll have a way to enforce our contract, and that's the biggest thing of all."

Over the past 25 years, the Dayton Newspaper Guild has been "a different kind of union," building support and solidarity despite not having dues check-off. More than 70 percent of the represented workers are TNG-CWA members.

An action that members took June 22 may have been a turning point. Angered by a top editor's letter criticizing Guild leaders, members held signs outside an editors' meeting that read, "I am a Guild leader."

Seeing that solidarity and fearing the Guild would follow through with a threatened advertising boycott, "I noticed a change in tenor around the table," Grieco said.

The contract, a one-year agreement, includes a merit pay increase in 2013, maintains other pay rates and benefits and prevents the company from using freelancers in place of laid-off workers.

"Many people have said over the years, 'You will never get a contract,'" he said. "If you believe that, then you're saying it's futile to keep going, and I refused to believe that. And I refuse to believe that some of the concessions can't be won back if we continue to strengthen ourselves and work hard."

Click here to read the full story on www.NewsGuild.org.