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Seattle Newspaper Workers Strike, Launch Own Paper
Angered by stingy raises offered by the city’s two daily newspapers, members of The Newspaper Guild-CWA in Seattle walked off the job two days before Thanksgiving, leaving the papers short 1,000 workers at the start of the industry’s most profitable season.
Striking workers began publishing their own newspaper while The Seattle Times and Seattle Post-Intelligencer resorted to distributing their papers for free. Area businesses pulled ads and Seattle officials and other news sources refused to cooperate with replacement reporters.
“We have a lot of solidarity,” TNG-CWA President Linda Foley said two weeks into the strike. “People are determined. They’ve made the decision that the company’s take-it-or-leave-it attitude is not one they can accept.”
The papers, which are owned separately but negotiate jointly with TNG-CWA Local 37082, offered workers an hourly wage increase averaging 55 cents a year over six years. The Guild is trying to make up ground lost since 1987, when the companies won the right to adopt a merit pay system.
While some members have benefited, many more have struggled to keep up with the cost of living, and have fallen below newspaper pay scales in other cities, Guild officials say.
The proposed wages were the company’s final offer Nov. 20. Members of the local, known as the Pacific Northwest Newspaper Guild, began picketing at 2 a.m. Nov. 21, the city’s first newspaper strike in 47 years. Within hours, reporters published the first online edition of the Seattle Union Record.
Times and P-I reporters and columnists are covering their regular beats during the strike but their stories now appear in the Union Record. Advertising sales staff, graphic designers, photographers and copy editors are also working on the paper, which is online everyday at www.unionrecord.com and is printed three days a week.
“The Union Record is ensuring that the high quality of journalism that the people of Seattle have come to expect will continue to be provided,” Foley said.
TNG-CWA Staff Representative Bruce Meachum said members are strong in their resolve. “They’re sticking together,” he said. “We’ve had very little attrition. At least 90 percent of the membership has been out since day one.”
The union also has the full support of Teamsters Local 174, whose members are refusing to cross picket lines to deliver the Times and P-I to carriers.
In addition to Foley, CWA President Morton Bahr and Executive Vice President Larry Cohen both have traveled to Seattle to march with picketers.
Wages are the main sticking point for strikers, but the Guild is also seeking a company match for 401(k) funds and wants the Times to eliminate a two-tier wage system for reporters.
The two sides met for the first time since the strike over the weekend of Dec. 8-10 but talks broke off with no deal in sight. “The Guild offered specific initiatives on how to resolve the strike and we showed a willingness to move on most issues,” Meachum said. “The company said ‘no’ and didn’t see a point in future talks at this time.”
The Guild represents 900 news, advertising and circulation employees at the Times and more than 130 news and business department employees at the P-I. The local also represents more than 60 printers whose CWA printing sector local merged with the TNG local several years ago. The printers have their own bargaining unit but are also on strike, with wages at issue.
Meachum said strikers are angered by management tactics, including heavy-handed security and phone calls from supervisors meant to intimidate members into believing their jobs are at risk unless they return to work immediately. “People are realizing that the company is not treating them fairly, not before the strike and not now,” he said.
By the strike’s third week, members had sent hundreds of letters to the papers’ advertisers asking them to drop their accounts. They also appealed to readers to boycott the papers.
Meanwhile, readership of the Union Record was on the rise. The paper is free, but signs at newsstands request donations.
“We’re printing 10,000 more copies than last week,” Meachum said Dec. 4. “And we’ve had lots of donations. One day a bus driver pulled up to a picket line and wanted to buy a Union Record. Everyone on the bus joined in and bought one, too.”
Striking workers began publishing their own newspaper while The Seattle Times and Seattle Post-Intelligencer resorted to distributing their papers for free. Area businesses pulled ads and Seattle officials and other news sources refused to cooperate with replacement reporters.
“We have a lot of solidarity,” TNG-CWA President Linda Foley said two weeks into the strike. “People are determined. They’ve made the decision that the company’s take-it-or-leave-it attitude is not one they can accept.”
The papers, which are owned separately but negotiate jointly with TNG-CWA Local 37082, offered workers an hourly wage increase averaging 55 cents a year over six years. The Guild is trying to make up ground lost since 1987, when the companies won the right to adopt a merit pay system.
While some members have benefited, many more have struggled to keep up with the cost of living, and have fallen below newspaper pay scales in other cities, Guild officials say.
The proposed wages were the company’s final offer Nov. 20. Members of the local, known as the Pacific Northwest Newspaper Guild, began picketing at 2 a.m. Nov. 21, the city’s first newspaper strike in 47 years. Within hours, reporters published the first online edition of the Seattle Union Record.
Times and P-I reporters and columnists are covering their regular beats during the strike but their stories now appear in the Union Record. Advertising sales staff, graphic designers, photographers and copy editors are also working on the paper, which is online everyday at www.unionrecord.com and is printed three days a week.
“The Union Record is ensuring that the high quality of journalism that the people of Seattle have come to expect will continue to be provided,” Foley said.
TNG-CWA Staff Representative Bruce Meachum said members are strong in their resolve. “They’re sticking together,” he said. “We’ve had very little attrition. At least 90 percent of the membership has been out since day one.”
The union also has the full support of Teamsters Local 174, whose members are refusing to cross picket lines to deliver the Times and P-I to carriers.
In addition to Foley, CWA President Morton Bahr and Executive Vice President Larry Cohen both have traveled to Seattle to march with picketers.
Wages are the main sticking point for strikers, but the Guild is also seeking a company match for 401(k) funds and wants the Times to eliminate a two-tier wage system for reporters.
The two sides met for the first time since the strike over the weekend of Dec. 8-10 but talks broke off with no deal in sight. “The Guild offered specific initiatives on how to resolve the strike and we showed a willingness to move on most issues,” Meachum said. “The company said ‘no’ and didn’t see a point in future talks at this time.”
The Guild represents 900 news, advertising and circulation employees at the Times and more than 130 news and business department employees at the P-I. The local also represents more than 60 printers whose CWA printing sector local merged with the TNG local several years ago. The printers have their own bargaining unit but are also on strike, with wages at issue.
Meachum said strikers are angered by management tactics, including heavy-handed security and phone calls from supervisors meant to intimidate members into believing their jobs are at risk unless they return to work immediately. “People are realizing that the company is not treating them fairly, not before the strike and not now,” he said.
By the strike’s third week, members had sent hundreds of letters to the papers’ advertisers asking them to drop their accounts. They also appealed to readers to boycott the papers.
Meanwhile, readership of the Union Record was on the rise. The paper is free, but signs at newsstands request donations.
“We’re printing 10,000 more copies than last week,” Meachum said Dec. 4. “And we’ve had lots of donations. One day a bus driver pulled up to a picket line and wanted to buy a Union Record. Everyone on the bus joined in and bought one, too.”