Tensions Peak in Strike Talks at Union-Tribune : Labor: Late offer from management prompts last-minute negotiating session.

After negotiators for the San Diego Newspaper Guild and management of the San Diego Union and Tribune spent most of the day in intense negotiating sessions, the two sides set a final meeting for 11:50 p.m., just minutes before the announced strike deadline of 12:01 a.m. today.

Guild spokesmen said management offered a new contract proposal late Friday night that included slightly more pay but fell short of satisfying many of the workers’ other demands.

The two sides then agreed to meet one more time, at 11:50, to try to work out their differences.

Hundreds of newspaper employees rallied late Friday night outside the Union-Tribune building. They carried candles and signs with slogans such as “Resist Copley Union-Busters” and “United We Stand.”

Shortly before the final meeting, Ivan Goldman, a copy editor with the Union and a guild member, said, “It can go three ways. We can strike. We can make enough progress to keep talking. Or we can put it to the membership for a vote. But I wouldn’t begin to predict the outcome.”

Bob Kemp, administrative officer for the guild, said the union would present a trade-off at the 11:50 session: In exchange for a three-year contract with other union demands met, the union would accept an open shop, in which employees are free to choose whether to join the union.

Guild members earlier this month authorized a strike at midnight unless “significant” gains were realized during the negotiations.

A strike would be the first in the 51 years that Union and Tribune employees have been represented by the guild.

Negotiators began meeting at 9 a.m. Friday at the Hyatt Islandia hotel.

“There’s a lot of soul-searching going on,” said guild member Liz Poppens, news editor of the Union’s Home section. “We’ve made contact with a lot of people. According to us, our numbers are good. If they want a strike at this newspaper, they’re going to get a strike. Our people have had it. We’ll show ‘em. We’re prepared.”

“The negotiations just stalled,” said guild member Pat Rapson, an assistant news editor for the Union. “They were out for hours, and then management came back with a one-year contract, which was totally unacceptable. I think you could say we were offended.”

Friday night, Herb Klein, editor-in-chief of Copley Newspapers, the San Diego-based chain that owns the two papers, said: “We expect to have a paper out on time tonight whether they strike or not.”

Kemp said management offered to provide company cars for circulation personnel but at the price of one-third of their jobs being eliminated.

In reference to a strike, Kemp said, “They don’t believe we’re serious, but these people aren’t kidding. Our biggest fear is that we’ll get a strike that nobody wants.”

The guild represents about 1,150 reporters, photographers and advertising, circulation and other employees of the morning Union and the afternoon Tribune.

The company also is negotiating with San Diego Typographical Union No. 221 and San Diego Mailers Union No. 75. Negotiations were continuing Friday night with the typographers. But, on Friday afternoon, an agreement was reached with the mailers union, which represents about 90 employees. Members of that union now must vote to ratify the contract.

At 7 p.m., guild negotiators received a management counterproposal that Klein described as being substantive enough to “settle this thing, to get it wrapped up in the immediate future.”

“We should know a lot more about all this (today),” Klein said. “We would hope that it’s considered seriously and can lead to a solution, to a resolution of negotiations.”

Union members on Friday braced for a work stoppage by establishing a strike office at the United Food & Commercial Workers Union office on Camino del Rio South, near the Union-Tribune office building in Mission Valley. Guild members were expected to gather at the newly established strike headquarters and travel en masse to the newspaper building if a strike occurred.

Guild leaders said that, on Friday evening, members were hauling personal items--including desktop computers and files--from the newspaper building.

Also Friday, guild leaders said they had won support from the local United Way charitable campaign, which agreed to contribute $175,000 to the guild’s strike fund. Should a strike occur, members would be able to draw upon that money to help make mortgage and rent payments, as well as to pay utility and food bills.

The United Way made the donation because its board didn’t want guild members to “devastate their savings accounts,” according to a guild strike newspaper.

The flurry of proposals and counterproposals generated by Friday’s marathon session was a big change from previous negotiating sessions in the long-running contract dispute. Guild members, who have been been working without a contract since June, 1988, have not had a pay increase in two years.

However, although the two sides made headway on several minor issues, they remained stuck on the question of how long the contract should be and what size raises should be included.

The guild Friday dropped a $1,200 “signing bonus” demand and revamped its salary demand to include a 10% raise during the first year and a 5% raise during each subsequent year.

Guild leaders repeated their allegation that management wants to abolish or severely weaken the union.

Klein, when asked to predict whether a strike would occur, said, “I can’t really give you an answer. I’m not trying to avoid the question. . . . The final decision on everything belongs to the guild.”

“We’ve got solid support,” Jim Griffin, the guild’s chief negotiator, said Friday night. “Of course, some people are going to cross (picket) lines, but we’ve got real solid support, and we’re especially solid in the circulation department, which is the toughest department to replace.”