May 15, 2004

Union clout

By Michael Ulreich
President, Chicago Newspaper Guild

Earlier this year The Newspaper Guild initiated a weekend meeting of Guild leaders in Baltimore to discuss issues of concern to the union as a whole. Eventually the group voted on those issues they’d like to see the Guild address and one of those concerns was turned into a committee called Building Union Clout Through Political and Legislative Action. This committee was formed to advise the Guild on what possible avenues it could take to engage in the national political debate without the taint of bias or whether the Guild should stay the course and stay out of politics. The committee is exploring the idea of a “green zone’’ of acceptable political activity and contribution program that journalists would be comfortable with.

Newspaper Guild President Linda Foley said the conference was called to develop a new way of thinking to confront the challenges facing all unions.

“It is to our credit that we’re having this meeting to step back from the day-to-day grind to see what we can do better,’’ Foley said. “We value the thoughts, ideas and suggestions from everyone here.’’

(I chair a committee which came out of this “convergence’’ meeting entitled Building Support in Community and Labor Movement. The goal of this committee is to build power for the labor movement through partners in the community and labor movement. We are currently working on a way to commit the Newspaper Guild union and its members to the cause of literacy in America. Anyone interested in helping should contact me an michaelulreich@sbcglobal.net. Another committees is working on developing the coordination of “chain’’ bargaining involving units owned by the same company and there’s also a committee working to improve the visibility and image of the Newspaper Guild.)

The Communications Workers of America, our “mother’’ union, has a fund-raising political action committee it calls COPE that enables their members to contribute to union-endorsed political candidates. Those funds will now go to candidates like Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry, who the CWA has endorsed.