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"Spirited Battle" Yields Contract at Washington Post
After six months of heated negotiations, two byline strikes and informational picketing, members of The Newspaper Guild-CWA at the Washington Post ratified a new contract Nov. 7 with modest wage increases.
The three-year contract, with a $1,350 signing bonus in the first year and subsequent raises averaging $21 a week, covers 1,500 newsroom, circulation, advertising and customer service employees in Local 32035.
Unit leaders said members waged a “vigorous and spirited battle” for the contract, including two byline strikes in which reporters, columnists, photographers and artists withheld their names from their work.
“This struggle brought employees together like nothing I’ve seen in my 10 years here,” said Rick Weiss, Guild unit co-chair and a Post reporter. “The level of solidarity during the byline strikes was spectacular and the support we got from middle-level managers who are not covered by the contract was very encouraging.”
Guild leaders unanimously recommended ratification, even though the settlement fell short of the union’s goals. “The leadership is convinced that this is the best deal that can be made at this time, and that to go anywhere beyond this proposed agreement would require widespread and substantial escalation of pressure tactics against the company,” officers said.
Weiss said members deserved more from the company financially, “and they’re putting the blame right where it belongs: on a management that refused to be fair.”
“This is a workplace where people give a tremendous amount of themselves and that’s never been shown more than in the weeks when the Metro reporters were all over the sniper story and again, just in the last couple of days reporting on the election,” he said. “For all this, working literally day and night, giving up family and friends, to be told that we’re going to get roughly 1 percent raises per year, is just plain insulting.”
The contract includes a compromise on the newspaper’s demand that union members be able to quit the union whenever they want, a demand intended to weaken the bargaining unit. The existing contract allows members to drop out during an annual 30-day period; the new contract will allow up to 10 members to leave the unit throughout the year.
The three-year contract, with a $1,350 signing bonus in the first year and subsequent raises averaging $21 a week, covers 1,500 newsroom, circulation, advertising and customer service employees in Local 32035.
Unit leaders said members waged a “vigorous and spirited battle” for the contract, including two byline strikes in which reporters, columnists, photographers and artists withheld their names from their work.
“This struggle brought employees together like nothing I’ve seen in my 10 years here,” said Rick Weiss, Guild unit co-chair and a Post reporter. “The level of solidarity during the byline strikes was spectacular and the support we got from middle-level managers who are not covered by the contract was very encouraging.”
Guild leaders unanimously recommended ratification, even though the settlement fell short of the union’s goals. “The leadership is convinced that this is the best deal that can be made at this time, and that to go anywhere beyond this proposed agreement would require widespread and substantial escalation of pressure tactics against the company,” officers said.
Weiss said members deserved more from the company financially, “and they’re putting the blame right where it belongs: on a management that refused to be fair.”
“This is a workplace where people give a tremendous amount of themselves and that’s never been shown more than in the weeks when the Metro reporters were all over the sniper story and again, just in the last couple of days reporting on the election,” he said. “For all this, working literally day and night, giving up family and friends, to be told that we’re going to get roughly 1 percent raises per year, is just plain insulting.”
The contract includes a compromise on the newspaper’s demand that union members be able to quit the union whenever they want, a demand intended to weaken the bargaining unit. The existing contract allows members to drop out during an annual 30-day period; the new contract will allow up to 10 members to leave the unit throughout the year.