If you haven't been following the battle out in Santa Barbara, California, over the fate of their local paper, the Santa Barbara News-Press, you really should be.
A recap: last summer, nine top journalists at the News-Press walked out, protesting the meddling of the paper's publisher, Wendy McCaw, in their reporting -- meddling that was so overt and intrusive that they felt it pushed them right up to the ethical edge, and then over. For example, when one of Ms. McCaw's top executives, assistant publisher Travis Armstrong, pled guilty to drunk driving and was sentenced to four days in jail, the news was all over every paper in the area -- except for the News-Press, which said nothing at McCaw's command.
Since then, the story has continued to spiral out of control, with workers and supporters protesting McCaw's leadership, workers being fired for "disloyalty" (yes, that's the actual reason they gave in the termination papers), McCaw taking the front page of the paper to accuse her own employees of misconduct, and on and on.
By September, the staff of the News-Press had gotten so tired of Ms. McCaw's disrespect that they decided to join together in a union. The results of the vote were overwhelming -- by 33 to 6, the workers had voted to join the Teamsters' Graphic Communications Conference.
And yet today, despite the overwhelming margin of victory, despite all the support the workers have received from the community, it's been 188 days since that vote and McCaw still has yet to recognize the workers' victory. (She's been taking advantage of all the opportunities the law gives to employers to delay recognizing a union the workers have voted for. The Employee Free Choice Act would close those loopholes and remove those opportunities.)
Over the last couple of days, the story has taken yet another turn. Frozen out of their newspaper, the employees of the News-Press have set up a news Web site of their own, the Santa Barbara Newsroom. In an editorial published in the Los Angeles Times, unfairly fired News-Press reporter Melinda Burns explains why they did so:
Believing that a union contract was the best way to protect our jobs and restore integrity to the paper, most journalists signed cards to join the Teamsters in July. We asked McCaw to recognize our union based on those cards, a step encouraged by the labor relations board, but she refused. So we conducted an election campaign, overcoming an onslaught of propaganda from hired union-busters, and won.
But then McCaw challenged the validity of the vote, claiming without evidence that some of our editors had coerced us into voting for the Teamsters. A judge finally upheld the union victory — but not until early March...
I was escorted out of the building in late October, a month after the union vote. I had been hired in 1985 by the New York Times Co., the previous News-Press owner. My colleague John Zant, a senior sportswriter, was fired two months ago by McCaw after 38 years at the paper.
The National Labor Relations Board's general counsel has announced it will prosecute the News-Press for firing us and six others. We will be represented by federal lawyers at a hearing this spring. But when will we get our jobs back, with back pay? Next year?
Change to Win unions are fighting hard right now for the Employee Free Choice Act so that no other worker will ever need to ask these questions again. In the meantime, we all stand strong with Ms. Burns and her colleagues in Santa Barbara. If you want to help them out, their Web site has information on how you can help.
Comments (1)
Comments posted to CtW Connect are the sole property of the individual posting them, and do not necessarily reflect the viewpoints of Change to Win, its affiliated unions, or its leadership.
Great post. And great to see the blog highlighted on the homepage. Good luck with the Santa Barbara fight.
Posted by Thirties Throwback on April 4, 2007 at 10:06 AM
Posted on April 4, 2007 at 10:06 AM