Newsletter of the Milwaukee Newspaper Guild

Contract vote

  • WHEN: 11 a.m. – 1 p.m. and 5 – 7 p.m., March 3
  • WHERE: Abert Room

Shareholder vote

  • WHEN: March 11
  • WHERE: Ballots have been mailed.

Don’t work for free

As we’ve gone through yet another round of buyouts and layoffs and are being asked to do more work, the Milwaukee Newspaper Guild would like to remind its members to file for any overtime worked. If you encounter any trouble with managers refusing to pay overtime, please see a Guild board member.

Contract agreement reached; vote set

After almost seven months of negotiations, the Guild bargaining committee reached a tentative agreement on a two-year contract with Journal Communications Inc.

The bargaining committee and executive board voted in favor of bringing this offer to our membership for a vote after going through a lengthy negotiation process that changed directions after the company announced its deal with The E.W. Scripps Co.

The committee felt that, given the circumstances of the impending merger and the importance that a contract and all its protections be in place when the new Journal Media Group takes over, we should accept this deal.

However, just because the committee endorses the deal does not mean you have to support it. It is your choice whether we should accept the contract agreement or go back to the bargaining table and continue working for a better deal.

Unlike the last two contracts, the Guild was able to negotiate some modest increases without having to give away major protections and benefits in the existing contract. The Guild and company both worked hard to keep the negotiations respectful and progressive, hopefully setting a precedent for future meetings.

The Guild will hold a vote in the Abert Room on March 3. The hours for voting will be 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. and 5-7 p.m.

Only Guild members in good standing may vote. Those who are interested in joining the union and casting a vote on the contract should contact President Tom Silverstein, First Vice President Ashley Luthern or any Guild officer. Membership cards will be available on-site for signing during both voting sessions.

Proxy ballots will be sent to those in the Madison and Green Bay offices. If anyone else is in need of a proxy ballot, please contact Luthern or any Guild officer.

As for the terms of the deal, the Guild was able to negotiate a modest bonus that will be paid to each bargaining unit person employed at the time of ratification.

All salary increases will be handled the same as in previous years. If nonbargaining unit people receive a general wage increase, the company will increase the wages of the bargaining unit by the same percentage. If there is an increase in 2015, a percentage of the increase will be guaranteed. The same will hold true in 2016, unless there was a raise in 2015. In that case, any general wage increase would be all merit.

There is language in the contract that says the Guild has not accepted the all-merit part of the agreement as a precedent-setting giveback and it is being done only because of the unusual circumstances of this contract. The Guild is determined not to accept a merit-only policy and will continue to fight for guaranteed wage increases in the next contract.

The company will continue to offer up to five weeks of vacation, but those who were hired before 1995 will join everyone else in a “pay-as-you-go” system, which means you earn the vacation as the year goes on, rather than be granted all five weeks as soon as the new year begins. Those people will receive a lump sum payment that transitions them to “pay-as-you-go.”

Banking of a fifth week of vacation will no longer be allowed, and the window for taking vacations for 2015 and 2016 will close on Dec. 31. Vacation for 2014 can still be taken through March 31. Those who have banked weeks of vacation outstanding would be paid out in a lump sum upon ratification.

The company will have the right to change the holiday policy to meet a JMG standard.

The company will determine the health care and 401(K) benefits with the proviso that bargaining unit members will suffer no more costs and have no fewer options than the rest of the company. This is in line with what we already had except the language is stronger.

As you can see, there aren’t a lot of changes in the contract and while we will be giving up control of the number of paid holidays, we will be receiving new money for the first time since before the 2009 downsizing. What’s more, we maintained all our protections, including severance, grievance procedures and a guarantee that no salaries could be reduced without our members’ approval.

After two years, we will know how the transition is going and can be fully prepared for our next round of negotiations.

Executive board members elected

In the fall, Milwaukee Newspaper Guild members re-elected the following individuals to their respective posts on the executive board: Tom Silverstein, president; Zeina Makky, second vice president; Tom Content, secretary; Bob Friday, treasurer; and Karen Samelson, board member.

Ashley Luthern was elected as first vice president after former First Vice President Jennifer Amur did not run for re-election because she accepted a job at the Washington Post.

More changes came to the executive board in December and January. Board member Jan Uebelherr accepted a buyout offer after more than 30 years with the Milwaukee Sentinel and Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. Meanwhile, board member Sara Martinez left the Journal Sentinel to accept a software engineering fellowship at Hackbright Academy.

Emily Ristow recently was elected as a board member. One board member position is still open. If you are interested, please speak to an executive board officer.

The executive board sincerely thanks Jan and Sara for their service, as well as longtime Guild leader Greg Pearson, who also took a buyout.

The executive board will update the steward system in the coming months.

Jan Uebelherr: What the union meant to me

When I left the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel — and I still can’t get over those words; this was the place I went to work and write for more than 36 years — I said my goodbyes and noted that I walked in the door a 19-year-old college student with the idea that I wanted to do something important. That was the vague idea.

Journalism — maybe that was the big, important thing that I would do. Well, turns out it was. I got to do something important, I said in my goodbye to my newsroom family. Not everyone gets that, I said, and it’s not possible to say how grateful I am for that.

A large measure of my gratitude goes to Local 51. When I said goodbye at the Guild holiday party, I said that I’d worked at the paper with a union, and without a union. I like it a lot better with a union, I said.

Here’s why.

I remember the hard fight to establish the Guild. I remember how management assigned editors to speak individually to reporters before the vote. Get them to vote no. The editor assigned to me said this: “This company will never allow a union.” (So don’t even try, right?) She also said a newspaper was no place for a union. “This is not the floor of a factory.”

Well, my father had started out in a factory, and my mother was a teacher represented by a union. But I didn’t argue. I knew how I would vote.

I knew that for years I was a part-timer whose hours were within a whisker of full time. I had no benefits. No vacation. No sick pay. I freelanced to flesh out my paycheck. I did this for years.

Well, the Guild was voted in. We won. I remember bursting into my apartment that night and saying, “We’ve got a union!” Is that big? My roommate wanted to know. Yes, I said. Yes it is.

We got to work. It was messy in the beginning. During early negotiations, a salary list was released that showed just how wide the wage disparities were between the two newsrooms, now united at the bargaining table: Journal paid more than Sentinel; men paid more than women. Sentinel women? Not good. Without a union, this could happen.

Over the years, we got contracts that won big things: Minimums. Severance. Protections and benefits for part-timers — yes, the Guild went to bat for them, too. Differential pay. (And a darn fine holiday party.)

I’ve heard some people complain about contracts over the years. Why did we give away this or that? Well, we didn’t give anything away. We fought hard. Sometimes we didn’t win. But we came to that table with one goal: To fight for you. That’s it. That’s all. And to my mind, that’s everything.

If you believe things are being given away, come to the bargaining table. Join us. We need you. You need us.

The Guild has been there for me, personally, in other ways. A few years back, when my husband was let go as a circulation supervisor just 12 days before Christmas, Guild President Tom Silverstein — in his usual remarks during the holiday party — noted my husband’s decades of service. My husband was moved by that. He said it was the only time that he felt any acknowledgement that he’d put in 35 years with the company.

That’s why I like this paper better with a union. They’re at the table for me, and you, in the broadest sense.

And it is not possible to say how grateful I am for that.

Jan

P.S. Watch for a Guild retirees’ chapter. We will be there for you.

2 top newsroom managers leave Journal Sentinel

Two longtime editors have left the Journal Sentinel in the new year.

Editor Marty Kaiser left at the end of February “to seek a new challenge,” as he announced late last year. Managing Editor George Stanley was named as Kaiser’s successor. The moves come before the completion of the merger of Journal Communications with The E.W. Scripps Co. and the spinoff of the new Journal Media Group.

Kaiser and Stanley have worked as a team since 1997 and were at the helm as the paper won three Pulitzer Prizes, among other awards. Stanley began as a state reporter for the Sentinel in 1989 and was business editor before becoming ME. The ME job is not being filled at this time.

Marilyn Krause, who has been in administration since 2000, first as a senior editor and then as an assistant managing editor, left in January to become a director at The Lowe Group, a consulting firm specializing in financial communications.

Krause was management’s liaison with Local 51 for newsroom issues and helped represent the company during several rounds of bargaining. Her union liaison work will be taken over by Jill Williams, deputy managing editor/features, entertainment and new products.

The Guild wishes Kaiser and Krause well in their new pursuits and hopes to continue a respectful working relationship with Stanley and Williams.

Not enough known to endorse merger

Tom Silverstein
Tom Silverstein

 From the president 

After much consideration, the Guild executive board decided it could not endorse Journal Communications Inc. and E.W. Scripps Co.’s proposed swap of newspaper and broadcasting holdings.

Shareholders of both companies will vote on March 11 whether to approve the transaction.

The Guild doesn’t feel like it has enough information at this time to know what the vision of the new CEO will be, how committed the new Journal Media Group will be to increase staffing, and whether it will understand the cyclical nature of the newspaper business and won’t lay off people every time it has an off quarter.

We hope we’ll learn more about its philosophy during state of the company meetings being held before the vote.

Just because we aren’t endorsing the move, it doesn’t mean we’re rejecting it either. One thing we are sure of is that there are some alternatives to this move that look a whole lot worse.

We know there is an investor with local ties who has been buying up newspapers and adding them to a wide network of holdings. We also know this group has been one of the worst when it comes to labor relations and has been charged with multiple violations of the National Labor Relations Act as recently as December.

There’s little doubt that the Journal Sentinel would be in worse hands if it were to be acquired by this group.

Even if that transaction weren’t to take place, there still would be the possibility that another company with a poor record in labor-management relations, such as Gannett Co., would consider buying the Journal Sentinel. That alternative seems just as bad.

The problem is that we have been left to guess what the Journal Media Group will look like. It got off to a lousy start when CEO Steve Smith demanded that 10% of the newsroom be jettisoned in order to make the transaction palatable for Scripps.

If that’s the kind of dedication to journalism the new group is going to have, why wouldn’t we have skepticism about what lies ahead? How can we endorse a move where the first order of business is to get rid of the very strength of the company — its employees?

It didn’t choose to cut corners somewhere else. It didn’t ask for the CEO, publisher and CFO to take a cut from the bloated bonuses and severance payments that will allow them to walk away financially secure no matter what happens to this company. It chose to cut away at the heart of the business, to put the burden on those people who produce the content that sells the paper and draws the millions of hits to the website.

We are thrilled that Journal Communications negotiated in good faith with us on a new contract, and we want the best for the newspaper we’ve poured so much of our lives into. We don’t want to lose any more of our colleagues and we hope, should shareholders approve the merger, management will be committed to us and the pursuit of great journalism.