Un-consenting adults

For five years T&G managment and newsroom staff have wrangled over a labor agreement. But there's no saying that all good things come to those who wait.

by Chris Kanaracus

Perhaps the bumper sticker on the door of the Newspaper Guild's office tells the tale best: "Three Years Is Too Long for a Contract." The sticker, though, is two years old.

Faced with growing concerns over pay and job security, the editorial staff at the Telegram & Gazette voted in a union in 1993 and began negotiating their first agreement with the company. If you ask T&G negotiator Peter Horstmann, he'll tell you that five years of negotiations is "not an uncommon thing in the newspaper business." But many in the union say they feel differently. The fact is, they've never had a contract at all and are wondering if they ever will. "The T&G is simply going through the motions of collective bargaining without any intent of reaching an agreement," says Chris Pope, a business reporter and local negotiator for the Providence Newspaper Guild, AFL-CIO. Frustrations have reached a point where union leaders say they are considering on-the-job actions.

"More and more people are now starting to say things like, `Are we being played for fools?', `Why don't we do something?', and `Are we getting screwed?,'" says staffer Richard Nangle. According to one newsroom source, a union vote to authorize a strike could come before the guild membership within the next several months.

Relations weren't always this bad between management and the guild, which thought it had at least one solid aspect of a contract nailed down. In mid-1995, tentative agreement had been reached on a standard 37.5-hour full-time work week. It was much to the guild's surprise that during the May 12, 1998, bargaining session Horstmann reopened the issue, proposing that a settled contract would include the provision that "management would have the right . . . to determine the number of hours worked by employees." When questioned by guild members, Horstmann insisted the proposal referred only to part-time workers, but then balked when the guild suggested clarifying the language in the contract, union members say. Pope says that it took "five or six" bargaining sessions to reach an agreement on this point alone, something that "could have been done in one or two.

"This is something that right on the face of it shows they just want to drag this process out as long as possible," says Pope. "They view these negotiations in a quantitative and not qualitative manner . . . we go in there under the pretense of having discussions of some substance, and they think that if they just show up and sit there, that's negotiating."

Yet Pope is confident that a contract will be arrived at eventually. He says management has tried to wear down the union and the tactic has backfired. "People aren't afraid of being in the union anymore," he says, "and membership is growing. We are not losing support. . . . We are not drifting away."

Helping swell the union's ranks at the daily has been the influx of part-time workers, who comprise one-third of the 150 editorial employees, an unusually high number of part-timers for a paper its size. Whereas full-time workers are salaried at an average of $22 per hour with full health benefits, part-timers work two to four days per week for around $17 per hour and an inferior health plan, often for performing the same duties as their full-time peers.

Beyond the disparity in pay comes an even more daunting obstacle for part-timers: the T&G is no longer hiring full-time employees, which, in effect, eliminates any chance for promotion. The result, according to one source, has been "a lot of turnover."

"The part timers are getting an extremely raw deal," says Richard Nangle. Union chair Kathleen Shaw, who has worked at the paper for 35 years, says she speaks for many when she says that full-timers "just want part-timers to have parity . . . that's simple justice."

One part-time employee sees things a bit differently, saying that some longtime employees view part-time workers in a disparaging light, believing they lack the commitment and drive to be full-time.

Something they agree on is that morale is low in the newsroom as a result of the unsettled contract. Union members, however, aren't pointing the finger at T&G's parent company, the San Francisco Chronicle, which purchased the Worcester paper in 1986, despite earlier reports that Chronicle Publishing Company wanted to sell the paper, and thus intended to squelch any progress with contract talks to make the purchase more attractive to prospective buyers. Instead, union leaders like Pope say the stonewalling is coming from within the 20 Franklin Street offices.

"[T&G publisher] Bruce Bennett wants to run this paper like Louis XIV ran France . . . his mentality towards unions is at least 60 years out of date," says Pope, who adds that Bennett holds contempt toward the union, and perhaps more important, toward his employees in general. "In dealing with Bruce and Peter Horstmann, I just get the sense that they do not consider us their equals, whether professionally, socially, or mentally."

Richard Nangle agrees. "Upper management is embarrassed that we organized. . . . I think the general feeling among them is that, `Maybe these people won their election, but we're not giving them squat.'"

Bennett, however, disputes any claim that he is holding up contract talks. "There is no prescribed time of bargaining for a first contract. The Newspaper Guild is notorious for extending bargaining," he says. "We have every intention of reaching consensus . . . we'll work very hard to find some common ground."

Talk of a strike was dismissed by guild members as recently as August, when Pope told the Phoenix, "[Striking] is not an option . . . we don't feel member support is strong enough." Kathleen Shaw had dismissed such a notion as well, saying that, "We [the union] prefer to do things professionally . . . we don't go around fomenting rebellion in the ranks. I'm not one to look up at Bruce Bennett when he walks by and say [hisses] `gimme a contract!'"

This sudden change of heart on the part of the "Gutless Guild," so-called by other departments at the paper, is surprising, but may be the newsroom's only recourse. Chronicle staffers, in fact, walked the picket line in 1994 for 11 days before settling a contract.

Union sources were careful to point out that the impending vote only authorizes a strike and does not enact one. Whether this attention to detail exposes the vote as merely a leverage maneuver remains to be seen. What no one disputes is the fact that over five years have passed and no contract exists. T&G negotiator Peter Horstmann was almost completely close-mouthed about talks but did say that as far as he and Bennett are concerned, "There are no egos involved. It's strictly business."

Assisting the T&G guild in their negotiations has been Tim Schick, who represents the local union at the Providence Journal-Bulletin and has a slightly different opinion. "It's a classic case of New England paternalism," says Schick, who says "this length of time for a settled contract is more the exception than the rule," and says he speaks for all the union in saying that management's actions are "unconscionable . . . they are acting completely contrary to what collective bargaining is all about."

A notion that Bennett quickly dismisses. "We aren't looking for anyone to knuckle under," he says. "I respect their right to bargain, and I think they respect ours."