Union-Tribune Guild OKs Pact

Members of the San Diego Newspaper Guild on Sunday ended a bitter labor dispute with the Union-Tribune Publishing Co., voting begrudgingly to accept a new, two-year contract but saying all is not well at San Diego’s two largest newspapers.

Guild members voted 227 to 78 to accept the new labor package that calls, among other things, for an immediate 10% pay raise--the first pay increase for many employees since December, 1987.

The contract negotiated by the guild covers 1,100 employees in the editorial, advertising, circulation and business departments.

Guild President Ed Jahn said members felt resigned to accept the new contract because it was the best they could expect to muster from the company. “There were no shouts of joy,” he said of the ratification. “People generally felt it was a poor, pitiful, unworthy kind of contract. They were hoping for something much better, but they realized the grim reality of the fight--that the publisher had the lawyers and the money.”

The dispute at one point boiled to the brink of a strike, which was authorized but never called. Instead, many reporters showed their dissatisfaction with the company by withholding their bylines and credit lines, and the guild campaigned for readers and advertisers to drop their support of the paper.

Jahn criticized publisher Helen Copley for putting the mechanics of publishing daily newspapers ahead of good morale in the workplace. “After two years of treating people the way she has, she better not expect us to come waltzing to work whistling, ‘Hi ho, hi ho, it’s off to work we go.’ The company got everything and more than it needs.

“Two years ago, we made a poor assumption the company would deal fairly with us. We’ve learned from that that we’ll have to get meaner a lot quicker with Copley next time.”

Herbert Klein, editor in chief of Copley Newspapers, which publishes the morning Union and the afternoon Tribune, said management was “pleased” by the ratification, calling the contract a “fair, workable agreement.”

“As a company, we are anxious to put aside the strife of the immediate past and to move forward to rebuild the professional pride we have in the newspapers,” Klein said.

He said the labor dispute “went longer than it should have. We’d like now to build new labor harmony.”

Guild members had argued that the tough contract talks were designed to ultimately bust the labor union, and they said Sunday that, given the contract terms, the onus was now on guild members to rebuild their organization in order to posture for new contract talks in two years.

Under the contract, the guild agreed to a modified union shop in which present guild members and future employees would be allowed to choose whether they want to belong to the newspaper union or not. The guild also agreed to drop its demand for automatic dues deduction--a term that existed in the previous contract.

Jahn said the guild would now try to show its value to employees by focusing on “creating a labor consciousness in the work force,” by considering such programs as child care and scholarship programs.

He said the guild succeeded in at least winning a two-year contract; the company has pushed for a one-year pact until a state labor mediator intervened in the negotiations.

In addition to the immediate--but not retroactive--10% pay increase, amounting to $75 a week for reporters and other employees currently receiving the top minimum pay--employees covered by the contract would receive a 3% pay increase the following year.