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Hundreds Rally to Rock Beat at Washington Post
Fired up by rock music and labor songs of solidarity, hundreds of CWA members and their friends from a dozen unions marched, chanted and demonstrated outside the Washington Post during a noontime rally Feb. 13 on behalf of mail room employees at the newspaper.
The workers, represented by CWA Local 14201, have been without a contract at the mega-rich media conglomerate since last June 15, according to CWA Vice President William Boarman, who heads up the union’s printing, publishing and media workers sector.
“This is the most profitable newspaper in the country today — with profits last year of $281 million — yet what they say to the workers we represent is that they want them to work longer for less,” Boarman said.
Management at the newspaper has attacked the workforce on such issues as jurisdiction (the bosses want “flexibility” so they can reassign mail room work to other employees of the Post or subcontract it out) and affordable health care (the Post charges many members more than $100 a week for insurance premiums while management gets the same coverage free or at little cost).
The bargaining stalemate at the prestigious Washington newspaper may be a precursor of things to come, warned CWA Vice President Linda K. Foley, who heads up The Newspaper Guild-CWA. The Baltimore-Washington Newspaper Guild contract with the Post — covering more than 1,300 members of TNG-CWA Local 35 and which includes newsroom personnel, sales, classified, accounting, artists, cartographers and systems engineers — expires Nov. 12, according to David Bates, the local representative.
With CWA’s John Cusick, an editor in the union’s communications department sitting in on drums, a four-piece labor rock group calling itself the “Bones of Contention” — all members of American Federation of Musicians Local 161-710 — provided a literally upbeat background to the hour-long rally.
Also in February, in Bowling Green, Ohio, several hundred members of Toledo-area unions rallied outside the Wall Street Journal’s Midwestern printing plant in support of 15 press operators and mailers who voted for CWA representation last April but who still have no contract.
The workers, represented by CWA Local 14201, have been without a contract at the mega-rich media conglomerate since last June 15, according to CWA Vice President William Boarman, who heads up the union’s printing, publishing and media workers sector.
“This is the most profitable newspaper in the country today — with profits last year of $281 million — yet what they say to the workers we represent is that they want them to work longer for less,” Boarman said.
Management at the newspaper has attacked the workforce on such issues as jurisdiction (the bosses want “flexibility” so they can reassign mail room work to other employees of the Post or subcontract it out) and affordable health care (the Post charges many members more than $100 a week for insurance premiums while management gets the same coverage free or at little cost).
The bargaining stalemate at the prestigious Washington newspaper may be a precursor of things to come, warned CWA Vice President Linda K. Foley, who heads up The Newspaper Guild-CWA. The Baltimore-Washington Newspaper Guild contract with the Post — covering more than 1,300 members of TNG-CWA Local 35 and which includes newsroom personnel, sales, classified, accounting, artists, cartographers and systems engineers — expires Nov. 12, according to David Bates, the local representative.
With CWA’s John Cusick, an editor in the union’s communications department sitting in on drums, a four-piece labor rock group calling itself the “Bones of Contention” — all members of American Federation of Musicians Local 161-710 — provided a literally upbeat background to the hour-long rally.
Also in February, in Bowling Green, Ohio, several hundred members of Toledo-area unions rallied outside the Wall Street Journal’s Midwestern printing plant in support of 15 press operators and mailers who voted for CWA representation last April but who still have no contract.