April 20, 2008

We need to have change every day

By Michael Ulreich
President, Chicago Newspaper Guild

Rhode Island was the first of the 13 original English colonies to declare its independence from British rule.

It was also the last of the states to approve the U.S. Constitution and has since gained the reputation as a rebellious state with a history of defiance to established authority.
……

So it was fitting that it was in the state capitol of Providence where two groups of union activists fought to wrest control of the Newspaper Guild international offices at a sector conference held there last month.

Union politics and the upcoming Guild were pretty much the major topic of discussion at the four-day sector conference. Incumbent Guild President Linda Foley and her Team Guild is opposed by Guild secretary-treasurer Bernie Lunzer and his A Stronger Guild ticket.

Lunzer’s people started out by leafleting  the Providence hotel ballroom where the sector conference was held and Foley’s people had a table in the hallway outside.

By the end of the conference Foley’s people were doing their own leafleting, accusing Lunzer of financial malfeasance in his role as secretary-treasurer.

Elections for Newspaper Guild President, Secretary-Treasurer and Chairperson will be held the week of April 24 to April 29. The ballots will be collected the next day and counted at the downtown offices on April 30. The votes will then be sent to Washington.

Those members who are not voting on-site have had the ballot mailed  to them. Each ballot was sent with. a plain envelope in which to place the completed ballot and a self-addressed stamped envelope in which to return the completed ballot.

Voting members should both print and write their names on the self-addressed stamped envelope.

The completed ballot must be received by April 29 and will be collected from a post office box rented by the Guild on April 30.

The conference met for nine hours Saturday, March 1, which included an afternoon candidate’s forum.

In fact, there was little other than politics to occupy those who attended the conference. The mostly hotly debated item on the conference floor during the four-day sector conference was the approval of a bid by the Canadians to have their postage paid. Or at least to have the CWA  pay the postage on the ballots they’d have to send out for the Guild election.

I called it the “Great Postal Revolt’’ of 2008.
 While the Chicago Newspaper Guild had to send out 450 pieces of mail, either ballots or notices of election, the Canadians have more then 6,000 members.and could end up spending several thousand dollars  to hold an election only Guild leaders really cared about.

At the end of the debate, which was initially viewed at first as just another strictly Canadian issue, the conference voted to ask the CWA to pay the postage. When Lunzer was asked what chance there was that the CWA would actually pay up, he assessed it as “little to none.’’

One of the top officials of the CWA, took the occasion in his opening remarks to berate rebellious Guild members.

The Communication Workers of America became the Guild’s parent union after merging in 1997. Lunzer has been accused of insulting the CWA in remarks he made at a candidate’s forum when he allegedly alleged that CWA leaders didn’t like the Guild’s messy public divorce.

CWA vice president Chris Shelton opened the conference by officially putting the rest to any notion that the CWA was anti-democratic.

“When you call my office we don’t ask what sector you’re from,’’ Shelton said. “We just ask where and when.’’

Shelton said the CWA couldn’t conduct elections in the same way as the Guild because of the expense. Shelton’s district alone, in the northeast part of the U.S., has 175,000 members ..

“I will defend your right to have your elections to my death,’’ Shelton said.

Lunzer said his statement in the Guild Reporter criticizing the CWA was taken out of context. The Guild Reporter is edited by long-time Guild staff member Andy Zipser and reportedly both candidates had the opportunity to read the text before it was published and neither protested about how their remarks were quoted.

“I didn’t like the article either,’’ Foley said. “I thought it was too negative. I did think that Bernie should retract his statement. The CWA is not our enemy.’’

“I’m not going to retract a statement I didn’t say,’’Lunzer replied.

The comments attributed to Lunzer did seem out of character. Both Foley and Lunzer heartedly endorse the CWA so at the time it seemed that Lunzer had turned it up a notch to add some spice to the campaign by aligning himself with a more independent Guild stance regarding the CWA.   

“I think this has been twisted politically to make a point,’’ Lunzer said. “They have assured me they’ll work with the winner of this election.’’

For his part, Shelton sought to reassure the Guild members in attendance that the CWA thought highly of its junior partner.

“You are an integral part of this union and an integral part of this sector and without a doubt, our brothers and sisters,’’ he said. “We will never, ever break our word.’’

“We are CWA,’’ said Foley’s running mate, secretary-treasurer candidate, Scott Stephens, an education reporter from Ohio. “We should never view them as an enemy or a problem, we should view them as the solution.’’
In her opening remarks, Foley called Larry Cohen, president of the CWA, the “most progressive labor leader in the country.’’ Cohen’s daughter is a Guild member.

Foley said the Guild needed a united union backed by the CWA to fight for workers rights and workers power.   She said the Guild had already benefitted from a CWA plan to spend $2 million  a year on strategic industry projects.

“My primary responsibility is to the Newspaper Guild,’’ Foley said. “We want to be respected by the CWA, not just liked.’’

For the record Cohen wrote two letters to the Guild Reporter, one denouncing Lunzer’s comments and the other endorsing Linda Foley. CWA vice president Barbara Easterling also endorsed Foley.

The first real challenge of the campaign for both sides came in the voting for the members of the Guild’s Sector Election Committee. Each side backed the same candidates with the exception of one candidate nominated byeach side. The sector election committee rules on who is eligible to vote and sets the date for the election.

Lunzer’s forces won the floor fight by a two-to-one vote.

In August the Guild will be 75 years old.  Columnist Heywood Broun called for a union at the New York World Telegram on Aug. 7, 1933 but the first local was established in Cleveland on Aug. 20, Local 1, now known as the Northeast Ohio Local.

In his day, said Guild chairperson Carol Rothman, Broun had hoped to organize all the workers at a given newspaper, not just editorial.

Both campaigns, but especially Foley’s, have harped on the need for more clerical workers, circulation people and ad reps in the Newspaper Guild.
      “The reason the Guild was created so many years ago was because news and sales professionals had the same needs,’’ Foley said. “We are facing some tough times. Our partnership with the CWA gives us the unique opportunity, together we can save our jobs and together we can build our union.’’

“Our strength is in broadening the base, said Rothman, a classified rep at the Philadelphia Inquirer

Foley wants to organize a new unit in Albuquerque as well as an Associated Press unit in Mexico.

Lunzer wants to do more with what we already have.

“We need to focus on working with locals to organize,’’ Lunzer said. “It’s not enough to send someone from headquarters to the next new hotshot opportunity.’’

In a book called “A Union of Individuals,’’ Daniel Loeb examined not only Broun’s role but those who did the “necessary day-to-day tasks that ensured its survival.’’

“In more recent years,’’ said Loeb, writing in 1970, “the organization has become just another part of the established scene, the tendency has been to ignore it.’’

Loeb described editorial workers as “cynical, romantic, sophisticated,  and highly individualistic.’’

“The thing we have, most individually and collectively, is brainpower,’’ said Canadian Guild president Arnold Amber. “We have a lot of clever people in the Guild.’’

In my notes from the sector conference  I wrote: “Linda has made a spirited defense  of her position and her fundamental humanity. But is it too late?’’

“I’ve been working for you for 12 years and to see you wearing those yellow lanyards and it’s hard for me,’’ Foley said.

The two sides in the campaign have faced off not only in the hall outside the conference room but within the room as well as Lunzer supporters wore yellow lanyards to make themselves noticeable. They were supposed to wear black too but that never happened. The sight of the yellow lanyards showed the extent of dissatisfaction with Foley while the absence of a yellow lanyard on a conference participant didn’t necessarily mean the opposite.

Foley went on to describe herself as, like most people, as a package of good qualities and bad qualities. One of her worst qualities she said was that she tended to adopt a harder demeanor in negotiating with employers and sometimes she had trouble dropping it when dealing with members.

“I apologize,’’ she said. “ I do recognize that in myself. It’s not very helpful.’’

Earlier Lunzer had his own take on the history of the Guild.

“It would have been easy to pessimistic,’’ said Lunzer of these early activists.  “And yes at times there were disagreements and discord. These early pioneers faced the same fear and loathing that we face today. But the risk was worth it because the prospect of no union was the same as the prospect of no future.’’

Lunzer said the Guild needed to be known as the national voice of journalism as well as a staunch defender of the fading concept of labor unionism. “We need to be the key problem-solvers of our industry,’’ he said.

American labor unions saw their first increase in numbers in 29 years in January but it was an infinitesimal increase.   

“Right now unions across the world are in a frightful state,’’ Amber said.

Foley said the American union movement needed to ensure the passage of the Employees Free Choice Act, which she said presumably won’t be vetoed by a future U.S. President like a Clinton or Obama.

“First Amendment rights will finally come to the American workplace,’’ Foley said.  “There is trepidation for what is happening in our core industry…Ad departments are being gutted….but people do have hope and pride in their union to make a difference.”
…

Then came some major mud-slinging.  Stephens charged that Lunzer approved Guild stock purchases in 2004 that had cost the Guild $500,000. (Not a smooth move but I know my own mutual funds have been diminishing at an awesome rate so much so that we’re thinking of taking the money out and putting it in a bank.)

Lunzer defended his purchase, contending that he had been lied to by an “unscrupulous investor.’’

“We’ve actually done very, very well ever since,’’ Lunzer said. “It wasn’t an issue then and it was resurrected for political purposes.

Perhaps more serious was the charge that Lunzer had made the purchase without telling anyone and had signed off on the purchase with just his own signature.

“It wasn’t just a mistake it was a series of things,’’ Foley said. ‘’There was a series of judgments which were made that got us into trouble.’’

Others asked why Foley and Stephens had been unaware of this use of Guild money. Foley is the Guild president and Stephens serves on the Guild’s finance committee.

“I think we can do a better job of getting financial information put to our members,’’ Stephens said. “There’s got to be a better way to get more complete and comprehensive information to them.’’

Foley was criticized by a conference member for her remarks that the U.S. military in Iraq had targeted journalists.

“I would not personally have made that statement and I think she was wrong in making that statement,’’ Lunzer said.

Foley said when she made the statement she didn’t it was such a big deal. And that she would stand by her remark.

Linda Foley opened her opening remarks with a tribute to Chicago Guild executive director Jerry Minkkinen, who was recovering at the time in an intensive care unit after extensive surgery.

“Although he and I don’t always see eye-to-eye,’’ she said. “I am thinking of Jerry Minkkinen.’’

The entire conference then gave Jerry a standing ovation. Jerry came back to work last Monday, April 14

“You start my day with knowledge, said Rhode Island Lieutenant Governor Elizabeth Roberts in remarks made to the conference of assembled union  journalists, other newspaper workers and union activists.

“I depend on you to communicate clearly on complicated issues. Don’t give up. What you do is too important for all of us,’’ she said.

Personally, I can’t read the letters section of the Guild Reporter, filled as it is, with false tributes and unwarranted endorsements. In March the Chicago Guild endorsed Bernie Lunzer by a 5-1 vote of the local executive board. I wrote a letter to the Guild Reporter praising Bernie Lunzer and his ticket. Others have written in favor of Linda Foley including a two friends of mine, Nestor Soto of Puerto Rico and Rollie Dreussi of Cleveland’s Local 1.

“This campaign thing is an odd process,’’ Stephens said. “You have to think  long and hard before you put a 30-year career on hold to go for something like this.’’

“Now is the time to put movement back in our movement,’’ Lunzer said. “Yes, we’re figuring out how to organize, we need to expand organizing from local to local. We’re big enough, we’re strong enough and gosh-darn it people like us.’’

At this time, especially, it’s not enough to be liked.