June 3, 2007

Lunzer challenges Foley at Tri-Council

By Michael Ulreich
President, Chicago Newspaper Guild

A routine Tri-Council meeting in Washington D.C. turned into something a little more momentous May 4 when Newspaper Guild international secretary-treasurer Bernie Lunzer laid down a challenge to incumbent President Linda Foley.

For the first time in more than 10 years the top position in The Newspaper Guild international is being contested as long-time incumbent Foley is forced to take on her former running mate Lunzer.

Providence Newspaper Guild administrator Tim Schick promptly announced his candidacy for Lunzer’s soon-to-be vacant position as secretary treasurer.

Lunzer’s action had been rumored for months but the announcement became official at a meeting of the Guild’s executive council on May 4.

Guild executive director Jerry Minkkinen has agreed to serve as Lunzer’s campaign manager.

The two candidates will debate in Chicago during a Midwest Council meeting scheduled for late October.

A Horse Race

It made for a tense yet sometimes humorous weekend as when Pittsburgh Guild treasurer Ken Fisher announced in the middle of Saturday’s meeting that he was running….a pool for the Kentucky Derby. The tension came when Foley and Lunzer, now officially rivals,  were forced to interact during the weekend meeting as the Guild’s top two officers.

Sources said the impending candidacy has created friction in International headquarters where the two candidates have their offices.

The Guild has changed and been forced to change since it merged with the Communication Workers of America 10 years ago.

Once the honeymoon was over, and the merger was celebrated by both the Guild and the CWA, the parent union has increasingly has made its weight felt.

One of the discussions May 5 in D.C. was whether the feelings of a CWA regional vice president in the northeast should be considered when taking an agreement affecting the Canadian Guild to the CWA convention floor this summer. One word from him, it was said, and the agreement, so important to the Canadian journalists, was dead.

“No one wants to see a problem in Toronto,’’ said Bill O’Meara, the new president of the New York Guild, replacing Barry Lipton.

The Canadians have been very defensive about their bid for autonomy within the CWA, a move that was rejected on a second-day vote at last summer’s convention in Las Vegas,  after it had been approved the day before,

“There are a lot of things in the CWA that people make decisions about,’’ said Arnold Amber, chairman of the TNG Canada. “We’re making only one claim. That we’re an international union. What we don’t want to do is get involved with crap about process. What we do want is to be voted up or down. That’s all we ask.’’

CWA vice presidents can be equated to tribal warlords and the CWA culture is different in that CWA members treat their leaders like mini-gods while the Guild has a healthier disrespect for their leadership born of the natural suspicious nature of most journalists.

The Campaign

Nominations will be accepted for open positions for president, secretary-treasurer and seats on the executive board at a Guild conference in February and then members will vote the following month on the candidates.

Lunzer has taken credit for developing Guild strategies toward newspaper use of the Web and the fact is that for many years he has highlighted the use of the Internet, by newspapers and the union, and has personally led seminars on the use of the web at Guild meetings nationwide.

He has also taken credit for recent efforts by the Guild to obtain newspapers owned by employees thru ESOPs (Employee Stock Ownership Plans), though that strategy has yet to be successful and Foley might want to take some credit for that herself.

Local leadership can recommend a candidate but for now I would say everyone should evaluate both candidacies and make their own decision. I see this election as an opportunity to educate our members on the issues surrounding our merger with the CWA and the machinations of the International Guild in D.C. Afterall, a lot of dues money heads east. And I’m sure a fair number of members couldn’t tell you what the CWA stands for.

“I don’t think that the union’s democracy is a burden, I think it’s the reason unions are a real, trusted solution for workers,’’ said Lunzer in his statement. “I will always provide more information, not less, about what members need to know to make their union strong.’’

Lunzer hints at some of the potential problems with fitting within the CWA structure in his statement:

“I commit to building a strong media sector within CWA and I’ve developed relationships that have begun that process. CWA is changing, ­ it hasn’t been (strictly) a telephone union for a long time. But because of the amalgamated nature of CWA, with so many different types of workers now represented, there is no

agreement on what our structure will be.’’

There has been some discussion lately on whether the CWA wants to consume the Guild by subordinating its locals into CWA districts.“I will fight for a strong, democratic, inclusive media workers sector,’’ he said. “But I recognize that it will take an open discussion to accomplish this,­ not back room brokering. I think CWA will keep geographic districts, but that can never replace sectors that specifically represent workers within individual industries. We need the tools and ability to focus on media.’’

Foley was expected to issue a statement on her candidacy soon.

New Initiatives

Meanwhile Foley announced two new initiatives, funded by the CWA’s Strategic Fund Initiative, which will seek to determine the reasons behind the nationwide problems of the news media and its unions. The two new initiatives include a new Media News Council and an on-line Future of the News Industry on-line survey to be conducted by the University of Maryland. The subject of the survey will be “where the jobs are and what they will become.’’

The survey will cost as much as $80,000, funded by the new and controversial SIF fund created by the CWA at its last convention. The SIF fund uses excess defense funds to finance new offensive rather than defensive initiatives. The New Media Council will cost $190,000. Foley said the CWA has financed a Verizon campaign with $3 million in SIF funds.

The survey will eventually be published as a series of articles in the American Journalism Review. A jobs summit is planned for the fall at the University of Maryland.

“The focus will be on what technology is doing to our jobs,’’ Foley said.“We hope to have this done—well, it’s supposed to be done already—but it’s in the hands of the University of Maryland.’’

Foley is asking each bargaining unit to appoint a technology mobilizer who will represent the unit in the on-going examination of today’s media, with the discussions planned to be “on-going’’ every year.

The new so-called “chain’’ Media News Council will focus on those papers owned by MediaNews Group Inc., which includes the Detroit News, Denver Post, St. Paul Pioneer Press and the L.A. Daily News. The MediaNews chain is the fourth largest in the U.S. and owns 56 newspapers in 12 states and employs 8400 workers, 3,000 of them union.

Other specially formed news media councils may follow.

“I hope this will be a template for other media chains,’’ Foley said.

The Guild hopes that participating locals will designate one mobilizer for every 10 persons to create a “stewards army,’’ of 300 persons.

The Guild also hopes to train these mobilizers, or activists, thru CWA/NETT, an on-line school being offered by the CWA, with scholarships available for the first 300 participants.

“The price of admission is you must become an activist,’’ said Carrie Biggs-Adams, a Guild staff member in charge of contracts.

Scholarships will be awarded for the cost of the classes, six-to-eight weeks on-line with two days of intensive training. Classes include the use of various computer applications and the use of a video camera in news reporting. Without a scholarship the classes can cost as much as $300 a piece.

  The Trib and the Times

The Saturday session was highlighted by a round-table discussion of the Guild’s early and earnest attempts to organize the Los Angeles Times.

The effort is being led by Eric Geist, a Guild field representative, and Lesley Phillips, a former Boston Guild leader now on special assignment in L.A.

Geist said the work conditions engendered by the Tribune company’s tenuous condition and proposed sale to billionaire Sam Zell has the employees of the company already thinking like a union.

“This is a group of people that really need a union,’’ Geist said. “This is a group that’s already acting like a union. We reach out and say, “We see this stuff going on, maybe you need a union.’’ People are very skittish, they’re scared to talk to people they work with because they know what’s out there.’’

Geist said the GCIU/Teamsters recently organized the L.A. pressmen by a vote of 140 to 131 and are seeking to also organize the newsroom.

This organizing drive is unique because of the use of the Web to communicate with Times employees and give them information that would previously been done thru leafleting.

“Organizing doesn’t happen in a vacuum,’’ Phillips said. The organizing duo is looking for Guild employees in cities where the Tribune companies have newspapers, like Chicago, to go on-line to tell interested Trib employees of the benefits of Guild representation.

“We need the rank and file to tell them why the Guild is important,’’ Phillips said. “If our goal is to organize the entire industry, let’s get to it.’’

“It sounds like an experiment, really, in organizing,’’ said Tony Winton, of the News Media Guild, the local that represents Associated Press members, of the Guild finally using modern technology to communicate with its workers.