CWA Media Sectors Discuss Industry's Economic Crisis, Job Strategies

In the face of media layoffs and bankruptcies, 150 members of CWA's newspaper, printing and broadcast sectors met for three days in Baltimore last weekend to talk about strategies for saving not just jobs but the industry.

"Our goal is to build hope among the members at a very difficult time, said TNG-CWA President Bernie Lunzer. "I think we put together some very solid ideas that people can take back to their members so that there isn't a sense of despair but a real constructive agenda." The three sectors plan to work together on organizing and other projects.

CWA President Larry Cohen talked about the critical need for the Employee Free Choice Act as a way to turn around the economy and enable workers to bargain with employers.

Seminars at CWA's first-ever joint media conference tackled such issues as organizing and bargaining in the deepening recession, the training that media workers need to compete in the ever-changing industry and innovative ways that employees and employers in other industries are working together.

CWA Printing Sector President Bill Boarman said newspapers' declining advertising and circulation revenues have created a crisis, threatening the survival of even the nation's most successful papers. The forum "presented us with the opportunity to share our ideas and solutions on how best to cope with this mess," he said.

Currently two papers with TNG-CWA and Printing Sector contracts, the Rocky Mountain News in Denver and the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, are up for sale, with no likely buyers. Without new owners, the financially strapped newspapers are expected to be shut down by their parent companies.

Meanwhile, newspapers across the country are cutting staffs, trimming the size of their publications, publishing less frequently, forcing non-union staff to take unpaid leave and even – in the case of the Chicago Sun-Times – floating the idea of sending 25 to 30 copy-editing and layout jobs to India.

The broadcast industry also has been hit hard, with consolidated ownership, shared newsrooms and rapidly changing technology slashing broadcast jobs across the country.

"In broadcasting, we've seen our industry change almost beyond recognition in the last couple of decades," said NABET-CWA Vice President Jim, Joyce, who spoke on behalf of NABET-CWA President John Clark, who was unable to attend.

"We've seen it evolve from an industry that provided secure, long-term staff jobs to one dominated – especially at the networks – by casual, daily-hire employment," Joyce said. "That, coupled with the never-ending influx of new technologies, has destabilized the work place and undermined the security of the workforce we represent by combining work assignments and reducing the number of people needed to do the job."

Podcasts of some of the forum's presentations are available online at www.newsguild.org. Click on "Media Unions Chart New Course for Recovery" for the podcast links.