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Eugene Guild Fighting Company’s Union-Busting Tactics
A year after the negotiating team for The Newspaper Guild in Eugene, Ore., started to bargain a new contract with The Register-Guard, every major issue is still on the table.
Maybe that’s not surprising, considering the proposal from the family-owned newspaper amounts to nothing but take-backs: A pay freeze for advertising employees, a pay cut for beleaguered circulation workers, changes that would lead to more part-time workers at less pay, and language that would cripple, if not kill, the Guild.
It’s a bleak situation for the 155-member Guild, TNG-CWA Local 194. But they’re fighting every step of the way.
“I think maybe they thought we’d just fold up, get frustrated and cave in,” chief negotiator Lance Robertson said. “It’s not going to happen.”
No one from the Baker family, owners of the 76,000-circulation paper, will come to the bargaining table. Instead, Guild negotiators have stood firm against a union-busting lawyer from Tennessee and a human resources director who has defied a National Labor Relations Board ruling.
“For 53 years, we’ve had a fairly good relationship with the Baker family,” Robertson said. “This is a major departure from anything the Guild has seen before at the bargaining table. The hiring of an outside negotiator like (Michael) Zinser, who has a reputation for breaking unions, is a clear indication of where the company wants to go.”
It’s not as if the company were broke, or even close, Robertson said. The newspaper’s publisher has boasted about the paper’s profits and the family has started new business ventures — a fancy high-rise apartment building downtown and a $50 million business park near the company’s $40 million new offices.
The Guild has been so tough that the company took the unusual step of asking a federal mediator to intervene — unusual, because mediators generally aren’t brought in unless the two sides have talked over every issue and can’t come to agreement on specific points.
“We haven’t even bargained all the items in the contract,” Robertson said. “There’re probably close to 20 items in their proposal and ours that we haven’t talked about.”
Still, the mediator agreed to step in. He met with the two sides, taking proposals back and forth, for two days in December. Another round is scheduled Feb. 3-4. Robertson said the only sign of progress was the company’s reluctant agreement to create a committee of circulation workers and managers to review the company’s proposal for performance-based pay, which starts with an 8-percent pay cut.
The company has been so petty that some Guild negotiators are being forced to take vacation days or unpaid time to bargain. In December, the company docked a day’s pay for two negotiating team members, even though both had made up the hours. The Guild is filing a grievance.
The union is also fighting a no-solicitation policy the company first used, illegally, to thwart the Guild during a campaign in 1997 to organize part-time employees. Under the policy, employees couldn’t so much as circulate a get-well card or post a notice inviting colleagues to a barbeque. Union materials, which had been quietly distributed for years by workers on their breaks, were barred.
The NLRB sided with the union and, in a settlement, the company agreed to rescind the policy. But the human resources director reinstated it last August as the union was mobilizing against the company’s bargaining tactics. An unfair labor practice complaint is pending against the company.
“This is a business that prides itself on protecting the First Amendment, protecting free speech,” Robertson said. “And here they are trying to stifle it — not just stifle it, but eliminate it.”
The union has taken issues public, starting with an entry in the annual Eugene Celebration parade last September. The Guild has followed up with speeches to community groups, radio talk show appearances and, recently, a radio ad produced by CWA.
“The community support has been great,” Robertson said. “We’ve had enormous response from other labor unions, politicians and everyday citizens.”
Maybe that’s not surprising, considering the proposal from the family-owned newspaper amounts to nothing but take-backs: A pay freeze for advertising employees, a pay cut for beleaguered circulation workers, changes that would lead to more part-time workers at less pay, and language that would cripple, if not kill, the Guild.
It’s a bleak situation for the 155-member Guild, TNG-CWA Local 194. But they’re fighting every step of the way.
“I think maybe they thought we’d just fold up, get frustrated and cave in,” chief negotiator Lance Robertson said. “It’s not going to happen.”
No one from the Baker family, owners of the 76,000-circulation paper, will come to the bargaining table. Instead, Guild negotiators have stood firm against a union-busting lawyer from Tennessee and a human resources director who has defied a National Labor Relations Board ruling.
“For 53 years, we’ve had a fairly good relationship with the Baker family,” Robertson said. “This is a major departure from anything the Guild has seen before at the bargaining table. The hiring of an outside negotiator like (Michael) Zinser, who has a reputation for breaking unions, is a clear indication of where the company wants to go.”
It’s not as if the company were broke, or even close, Robertson said. The newspaper’s publisher has boasted about the paper’s profits and the family has started new business ventures — a fancy high-rise apartment building downtown and a $50 million business park near the company’s $40 million new offices.
The Guild has been so tough that the company took the unusual step of asking a federal mediator to intervene — unusual, because mediators generally aren’t brought in unless the two sides have talked over every issue and can’t come to agreement on specific points.
“We haven’t even bargained all the items in the contract,” Robertson said. “There’re probably close to 20 items in their proposal and ours that we haven’t talked about.”
Still, the mediator agreed to step in. He met with the two sides, taking proposals back and forth, for two days in December. Another round is scheduled Feb. 3-4. Robertson said the only sign of progress was the company’s reluctant agreement to create a committee of circulation workers and managers to review the company’s proposal for performance-based pay, which starts with an 8-percent pay cut.
The company has been so petty that some Guild negotiators are being forced to take vacation days or unpaid time to bargain. In December, the company docked a day’s pay for two negotiating team members, even though both had made up the hours. The Guild is filing a grievance.
The union is also fighting a no-solicitation policy the company first used, illegally, to thwart the Guild during a campaign in 1997 to organize part-time employees. Under the policy, employees couldn’t so much as circulate a get-well card or post a notice inviting colleagues to a barbeque. Union materials, which had been quietly distributed for years by workers on their breaks, were barred.
The NLRB sided with the union and, in a settlement, the company agreed to rescind the policy. But the human resources director reinstated it last August as the union was mobilizing against the company’s bargaining tactics. An unfair labor practice complaint is pending against the company.
“This is a business that prides itself on protecting the First Amendment, protecting free speech,” Robertson said. “And here they are trying to stifle it — not just stifle it, but eliminate it.”
The union has taken issues public, starting with an entry in the annual Eugene Celebration parade last September. The Guild has followed up with speeches to community groups, radio talk show appearances and, recently, a radio ad produced by CWA.
“The community support has been great,” Robertson said. “We’ve had enormous response from other labor unions, politicians and everyday citizens.”