Journalists at 11 Cookie-Cutter Newspapers Vote for One Union
Once upon a time, there were eleven local newspapers in greater Los Angeles metropolitan area. They were fiercely independent, and mostly did a good job covering local news.
Then, one by one, they became properties of media chains. Newsrooms and other departments at the papers either laid off workers or didn’t fill vacant positions. Journalism suffered.
Two of the newspapers were unionized. The Long Beach Press-Telegram had been organized in the Roosevelt era. Never mind that some of the members of the Ridder family, that owned the P-T and the Journal of Commerce, were Nazi sympathizers before the war.
The Ridder family, along with the Knight family, built a nationwide chain of more than 30 big city newspapers. They were known for excellent journalism, and more or less, benign labor relations.
When the Union-Busters Came to Town
In the 1980s, Peter Ridder, one of the children of the founders, became the publisher in Long Beach. He decided he would have a go at union busting. With the help of his employee relations chief, Robert Rowell, he brought the notorious union-busting firm, King and Ballow, to Long Beach.
The same day King and Ballow arrived, the union, the Los Angeles Newspaper Guild, hired me as their administrative officer. Since the Ridders were well-regarded in Long Beach, my plan was to focus on the union busters, King and Ballow. Thousands of flyers were soon flooding Long Beach showing the movie poster for the pro-union Matewan film, with an added headline, “Who brought the union-busters to Long Beach?”
Meanwhile, a subscription cancellation drive was started by the Guild. In line with the union-busting, the Press-Telegram presented a list of contract-gutting proposals, including no union shop, merit pay instead of guaranteed raises, cuts in health benefits, and drastically increased management perogatives. We responded with packing the bargaining sessions (our right) with workers and leaders from other unions in the area. We defended our union rights with one of the copy editors giving a several-days long history, dating back several thousand years, of the struggle for union rights.
This story had a happy ending, with the paper terminating its contract with King and Ballow, and sending them packing. This was K&B’s only defeat in their nationwide assault on unions. A new labor contract, without the takeaways, was ratified.
The L.A. Daily News Became the Biggest Organizing Victory in 20 Years
New ownership by billionaire Jack Kent Cooke had turned the old Valley Green Sheet into one of the largest newspapers in town. In our spare time at the Guild, we would pass out union flyers at the front gate of nearly all of the 11 papers. That is how we got our first contacts at the Daily News. It took us about two years to build enough strength to file for a representation election. We smashed management, getting more than two-thirds of the vote.
It was during the Daily News election campaign, and immediately after, that we encountered the dark side of the union. Our union was too small to afford even one organizer, in addition to me. Since I could not give up my contract negotiations and arbitration hearings elsewhere, a full-time organizer was imperative. We hired an excellent union and peace organizer, Rochelle Howe, to concentrate exclusively on the Daily News campaign. Unfortunately, her employment was dependent on the good graces of the international union.
Both the president, Charles Dale and Secretary-Treasurer John Edgington resented my successes in organizing. Truth to tell, we had also formed a union caucus called Concerned Guild Members, with New York Daily News columnist Juan Gonzalez as president, Gail Lem, president of the largest Canadian local as Secretary-Treasurer, and me as National Organizer.
Our stated goals included the Guild demanding employers hire more people of color, autonomy for the Canadian locals, and a more aggressive organizing program. This antagonized the old guard officers who survived on a cozy relationship with publishers.
S-T Edgington, from San Diego, was among the most hostile, shouting at me in an international executive board meeting that the whole campaign was a waste of time since we wouldn’t be able to win a contract. In fact, we won a fairly good first-contract settlement including wage scales and dues checkoff. Our success just further infuriated the top officials.
Their animosity surfaced again in 1990 with our organizing campaign at the L.A. Times. The Times staff, who were enduring chaos in the top ranks of Times Mirror Inc., were in desperate need for a union. At the time we were defunded, causing us to lose our organizer who was on leave from the Press-Telegram, we had more than 100 journalists on our organizing committee. We were breaking through to new departments and work sites almost daily.
As a result, L.A. Times workers didn’t get the benefits of a union until 28 years later. Unfortunately, the poor, and often hostile, leadership was not unique to the Newspaper Guild. As Michael Moore put it in Downsize This, “Why Are Union Leaders So F#!@ing Stupid?”
The answer goes back to the McCarthy red-baiting of the late 1940s and 50s. At that time, most good union leaders, communist or not, were deposed, and replaced by men (almost exclusively) who began the parade of stupid union leaders. They were followed by their protégés, and their protégés, who were the stupidest of the lot.
Rarely, would someone with ability slip through. If so, chances are that rare person would be hounded out of his job by the know-nothings in charge. Such was my existence for 25 years in the labor movement. If I had just shut up and done nothing I would have been praised by the old guard.
What Organizing 11 workplaces into one union means
In addition to the Press-Telegram and the Daily News, the following newspapers got a brand new union. They include: the south bay Daily Breeze, San Bernardino Sun, Pasadena Star-News, Inland Valley Daily Bulletin, San Gabriel Valley Tribune, Whittier Daily News, and the Redlands Daily Facts.
It is possible for a unionized workplace to lose its union when there is a new buyer, such as Alden. If the buyer takes over the company, the union stays intact, but if the new buyer only buys the assets, then the union ceases to exist. Most consumers wouldn’t notice the difference, but the workers would.
The combination of the 11 newsrooms into one bargaining unit makes sense, since they all have the same employer. However, by acquiescing to a multi-location bargaining unit, the National Labor Relations Board may be shifting its policy. The broader unit means that the union has more clout.
The bad news is that there are only 140 eligible union members in all 11 newspapers, which are known collectively as the Southern California News Group. The union won 64-19. They will become part of the Media Guild of the West local that also includes the L.A. Times newsroom.
The small number of union members at the 11 papers shows how uncaring employers have decimated journalists’ ability to gather and write the news. When we had the election at the L.A. Daily News in 1989, there were 200 eligible voters at the one newspaper.
There’s more bad news for the newly organized staff. They have the worse employer imaginable, the Alden Global Capital hedge fund group. Alden already owns 100 newspapers, and seems intent on owning, or destroying, every newspaper in the country.
Apparently, hedge funds have been able to accumulate all our money, billions and billions of it, and are now on a quest to remake the media. It is coming to a neighborhood near you. Alden is not the only hedge fund buying up our way of life, but it seems to be the most voracious.
Alden recently bought the Chicago Tribune media empire after L.A. Times owner, Patrick Soon-Shiong threw his votes to the hedge fund. Rumors abound that Soon-Shiong wants to unload the Times, possibly on Alden.
The good news is that at least 30 newspapers have voted to unionize since the beginning of the year. Workers are proving they can be a strong adversary to hedge fund billionaires and incompetent union officials.
——————————————————
Please subscribe, or renew your subscription. The fun is just beginning.