Chicago-area publisher believes in showing the numbers to all staffers

Three Four Five more contributors to the City Brights blog are showing their support for the Newspaper Guild.

Albany County Comptroller Mike Conners won’t stop blogging but says he’ll use the space to tell about his family’s experiences with the Guild. Conners’ first post in support of the Guild can be read here and you can see the letter he sent to Publisher George Hearst here.

“What you are doing to the union will backfire economically on your family’s proud traditions and enormous wealth,” Conners wrote to Hearst.  “Please reconsider the path you are upon for it bodes poorly for our local economy and your paper’s future.”

UPDATE: Common Council President Shawn Morris, a Democratic candidate for mayor in Albany, just joined the ranks of the bloggers speaking up in support. You can read her comment here.

Mark Mishler, president of the Albany City Council PTA, told his readers why he won’t be blogging until a fair contract is reached here.

Teacher Valarie Karas also let everyone know that she is standing by our union. You can read what she has to say here.

And Mitch Messmore, founder of Art Night Schenectady, weighs in here.

Those four five join Albany Common Council member Corey Ellis, who is also running for mayor in Albany, in supporting the Guild.

Albany Common Council member Corey Ellis, a Democratic candidate for mayor, is taking a stand in support of members of the Newspaper Guild.

Visitors to his blog on timesunion.com found a message explaining that he will be taking a hiatus from posting until a fair contract is reached. The Guild is very grateful for this show of support. Ellis was also among the council members who sponsored and approved a resolution in support of the Guild.

Troy Mayor Harry Tutunjian, a Republican, turned down an offer that he join the bloggers under the TU’s City Brights. He too said he could not do so while the Company is mistreating the Guild.

The support in the community is building every day, and we appreciate all of it.

Here’s a local blogger who explained why he is not commenting on Capital Confidential any more. We hear from more and more members of the community who support the Guild and are letting their voices be heard, even if it’s not on the TU site.

In his latest Friday evening e-mail, Publisher George Hearst “applauds” the bargaining committee’s decision to take the Company’s proposal to the membership for a vote.

Hold your applause, sir. We’re recommending the membership soundly defeat it.

In his latest missive, the publisher fails to mention that his proposal would enable the Company to lay people off and outsource their jobs. Funny how that slipped his mind. 

He doesn’t mention that the Company has eliminated every driver’s job because it had that power (though it could not lay them off, most took buyouts.) He doesn’t tell you that in Brockton, Mass., the newspaper gained the ability to outsource work and eliminated every district manager’s job.

He also doesn’t tell you that the Guild proposed language that would bar the Company from creating ‘shadow’ companies. (That would meant they could not open an office down the road, or in the building even, and say it is a “separate” company called, say, the Design Shop, where all editorial and advertising art jobs would go.)

The Company refused to even discuss it.

George Hearst’s e-mails are interesting not for what they say, but for what they deliberately exclude.

The Guild’s Executive Board voted Thursday to schedule a vote on the Company’s “last and best offer” for 1 p.m. Sunday, June 14, at the Albany Labor Temple. And the board recommended the membership vote a resounding NO!

“There is nothing in this proposal to recommend it and a great deal in it that would harm workers, advertisers and readers,” Guild President Tim O’Brien said. “We recommend the membership send a strong message to the Company that they need to respect  their employees and their community by coming back to the table with a more reasonable offer.”

The vote was set for Sunday, June 14, for several reasons. Contract votes are always set for Sunday afternoons because it is when the least number of Guild members are working. Our members work at almost every hour of the day, and we need to make it convenient for everyone to be there.

Our union’s bylaws require members get at least 15 days’ advance notice in writing that a membership meeting is being held. We cannot send out that formal notice until one step is completed: The proposal the Company sent out as its “last and best offer” did not include all of the tentative agreements reached since negotiations began last summer. In our discussions Wednesday, the TU said its offer did include those items.

Both the Guild and the Company reviewed a list Wednesday night of  the various tentative agreements, and both sides agreed to check their files to see if we’d missed anything. (We found one thing on our end Thursday).

There are about 25 tentative agreements involved. At the session’s end, both parties agreed to review our files and share what we believe to be the final versions of the language of all those agreements. Once the two sides agree everything matches, we can print that up and share it with you so you’ll see everything before you vote. We have not yet completed that work ourselves, and we had not received the company’s version as of Thursday night.

The earliest we could send a notice out is next week, which means the earliest we could schedule a membership meeting is Sunday, June 7. That, alas, is the date of our annual picnic. The board wisely decided that the picnic — the date of which has been set since January — is no place for a vote. So we scheduled the vote for Sunday, June 14. That will give us plenty of time to get the complete proposal together, share it with you, and enable you to ask questions about it. We also plan to have small group meetings to share information in the days ahead.

The Guild’s Executive Board appreciates your patience as we get all of this together for your consideration. We think you will agree when you see it all that the proposal the Company is forcing you to vote on is unworthy of your support.