Ownership Deception Prompts Charges by York Guild

Having to play a guessing game of "Who's the Publisher" has complicated bargaining for The Newspaper Guild-CWA in York, Pa. The Guild local there has filed unfair labor practice charges over bad-faith bargaining as well as misrepresentations about who actually owns the town's three newspapers.

MediaNews Group had claimed that as part of a newspaper swap in 2004, Buckner News Alliance now owned the York Dispatch. However, the local obtained proof recently that no such trade had occurred and that MediaNews, in fact, has a monopoly in York. It continues to own the Dispatch and the Sunday News and bought the York Daily Record from Buckner.

TNG-CWA Local 38218 represents 80 workers at the three papers. In the complaint to the National Labor Relations Board, leaders said they'd made decisions about how best to represent members based on letters from both employers announcing the phony swap.

The Guild contract at the York Daily Record expired last September and the contract at the York Dispatch expires this October. Further scrambling the bargaining scenario, the Dispatch contract covers workers at the Sunday News, but that paper now has been incorporated with the York Daily Record.

In another ULP charge, Guild leaders say Daily Record management — which has hired a notorious union-busting law firm — has refused to bargain in good faith. The charge includes evidence that managers have harassed the local Guild president and refused to give unpaid time for members of the bargaining committee to attend negotiations.

Through rallies, billboard ads, radio spots and other activities, the Guild has built enormous public support in York. But the paper has refused to publish letters to the editor from readers questioning management's actions, and it even shut down a message board on its website when postings appeared by citizens upset about the workers' treatment.