Slog
News & ArtsSaturday, April 4, 2009
Media Boston Globe Threatened With Closure
Posted by Dan Savage on Sat, Apr 4, 2009 at 7:11 AM
...by its parent company, The New York Times.
The New York Times Co. has threatened to shut the Boston Globe unless the newspaper's unions swiftly agree to $20 million in concessions, union leaders said.Executives from the Times Co. and Globe made the demands Thursday morning in an approximately 90- minute meeting with leaders of the newspaper's 13 unions, union officials said. The possible concessions include pay cuts, the end of pension contributions by the company and the elimination of lifetime job guarantees now enjoyed by some veteran employees....
Lifetime job guarantees?
1
I don't see why the lifetime job guarantees are such a big sticking point. Times Co. should just feed the employees foie gras and buy them pet pit bulls ...
3
Wow.
These Liberal newspapers that for years thought unions were great for everyone else have gotten pretty wise in their terminal stages.
These Liberal newspapers that for years thought unions were great for everyone else have gotten pretty wise in their terminal stages.
4
Unions destroy whatever they touch.
The only difference between Wall Street fatcat greed and Union greed is style.
The only difference between Wall Street fatcat greed and Union greed is style.
5
Nice one FIfty-Two-Eighty! You really let Dan have it! God I hate that cocksucker. I'm just happy I can come to his own personal blog, read what he writes and then twist the meaning of his entry to point out things I don't like about him! Fuck yeah, that gets me so pumped.
Give him another one 50280! Get him where it hurts!
Give him another one 50280! Get him where it hurts!
6
@3 Did you think it was a coincidence that the liberal newspaper had a pro-union stance and the fact that unions had wide influence within the papers themselves? I wouldn't want to be the editor who has asked for a series of anti-union articles from his writer's guild employees. Or the publisher who then has to deal with union negotiations after the article publishes (or for that matter, if I was the writer I'd be a bit nervous about the coffee I just got from the union food service worker at the paper's coffee shop and be careful that I didn't park my car anywhere near where the union truck drivers drive those newspaper trucks.)
8
Exactly...I've been laid off and fired so many times...yet, I read these stories about $70 auto workers and somehow I feel sympathy. Is all this solidarity in my interest at all?
10
What exactly will students in journalism departments (bachelor and graduate programs) do for employment in their fields when the newspaper industry disappears?
It's not like this is a news flash, but I wonder if the next step will be increased disappearance of journalism as a course of study.
It's not like this is a news flash, but I wonder if the next step will be increased disappearance of journalism as a course of study.
11
@8 Be careful when you throw around that commonly heard $70 figure. I don't want to say its entirely inaccurate, but without a little asterisk explaining what it is it can you can be misleading people. The average GM union worker makes $28/hr. The $70/hr figure comes from adding up all wages and other compensation (including pension and health contributions to retired workers) and then dividing it by the number of current workers.
Now my current employer doesn't have a pension plan (my old one did, but was trying to shift emphasis to 401K contributions) so if I wanted to compare my wages to the $70/hr figure, I'd have to include the current value of the money my employer contributed to their retirees when the matching contributions were made.
GM at the time of making these pension agreements assumed that if they kept the capital, rather than giving it off into some 401k plan, could grow their business faster than the market as a whole would go. (Which seemed like reasonable assumption. If they would make more money by putting $1 in the market rather than putting into building a car, why bother building the car at all) The fact that they are losing money now just amplifies the problem.
The $70 figure does represent a real problem for GM, it is the money that they have to pay, but it isn't a problem they can solve with negotiations with their current workers. They have 4 times as many retired workers on pensions they've already agreed on than they do current workers who they can negotiate on for current wages and benefits.
Now my current employer doesn't have a pension plan (my old one did, but was trying to shift emphasis to 401K contributions) so if I wanted to compare my wages to the $70/hr figure, I'd have to include the current value of the money my employer contributed to their retirees when the matching contributions were made.
GM at the time of making these pension agreements assumed that if they kept the capital, rather than giving it off into some 401k plan, could grow their business faster than the market as a whole would go. (Which seemed like reasonable assumption. If they would make more money by putting $1 in the market rather than putting into building a car, why bother building the car at all) The fact that they are losing money now just amplifies the problem.
The $70 figure does represent a real problem for GM, it is the money that they have to pay, but it isn't a problem they can solve with negotiations with their current workers. They have 4 times as many retired workers on pensions they've already agreed on than they do current workers who they can negotiate on for current wages and benefits.
12
Yes, it's all the fault of the nasty unions, the ones who made a work week set by law rather than the whim of your employer, the ones who made it mandatory that your employer allow you to go take a shit when you need to, the ones that allowed you to fight against being fired because your boss decided he didn't like your attitude about those unsafe floors or machines, the ones who got you any health care at all by making it part of employment contracts.
If you think the workplace would be a happy utopia without the power of collective bargaining and the threat of collective action you have no knowledge of the history of labor. And when the unions were negotiating for the compensation and perks that they got plenty of people were ecstatic, because at last the worker was making a wage that reflected what the labor was worth. There were plenty of strikes where the police and the military were called in as strike-breakers, and management got to continue to set all of the rules and call all of the shots-for a while at least.
Unions were taken over by the mob, and were often used as a way to enrich corrupt officials. They have been no better at predicting the future than management has been, but on the whole the conditions for workers in this country would be fucked without them.
If you think the workplace would be a happy utopia without the power of collective bargaining and the threat of collective action you have no knowledge of the history of labor. And when the unions were negotiating for the compensation and perks that they got plenty of people were ecstatic, because at last the worker was making a wage that reflected what the labor was worth. There were plenty of strikes where the police and the military were called in as strike-breakers, and management got to continue to set all of the rules and call all of the shots-for a while at least.
Unions were taken over by the mob, and were often used as a way to enrich corrupt officials. They have been no better at predicting the future than management has been, but on the whole the conditions for workers in this country would be fucked without them.
13
People who know nothing about unions shouldn't attempt to comment on them.
Just remember: It takes two parties to enter into an agreement - Management and Labor. If management didn't like the terms, they didn't have to sign.
As for "lifetime job guarantees", it's probably some clause that says that if a department is eliminated, they can get a job in another department.
After reading this, someone will undoubtedly post some drivel about how the unions force management into signing bad contracts. Just think about that for a minute: Aside from B movies, Ayn Rand novels, and right-wing paranoiac wet dreams, when can you ever cite an instance where the union was more powerful than the company? At best, it's a draw.
Unions aren't perfect. In fact, I think they need a basic rethinking of how they operate. But the worst problem both labor and unionized corporations have is poor quality employees on the supervisory and middle management level.
Contrary to the right-wing corporate talking point, It's entirely possible to discipline and fire bad employees, if management and supervisors actually know the process that they agreed to, and follow through with it. Trouble is, most of them are too lazy or stupid to do their homework, so they blame the unions for all of their woes - and naive people on the outside parrot their talking points.
When I was a manager for the state of Iowa, I fired three union employees - two for theft and one for not being able to do the work. When I worked for Westin - which was heavily unionized when they were an independent company - I saw people with years of seniority fired with just cause. So don't snowjob me about how shackled organizations are by unions.
And for the poor unfortunate who labored under the delusion of the $70 per hour auto worker, please see this link:
http://www.uaw.org/auto/11_25_08auto2.cf…
Thus endeth my Norma Rae moment.
More...
Just remember: It takes two parties to enter into an agreement - Management and Labor. If management didn't like the terms, they didn't have to sign.
As for "lifetime job guarantees", it's probably some clause that says that if a department is eliminated, they can get a job in another department.
After reading this, someone will undoubtedly post some drivel about how the unions force management into signing bad contracts. Just think about that for a minute: Aside from B movies, Ayn Rand novels, and right-wing paranoiac wet dreams, when can you ever cite an instance where the union was more powerful than the company? At best, it's a draw.
Unions aren't perfect. In fact, I think they need a basic rethinking of how they operate. But the worst problem both labor and unionized corporations have is poor quality employees on the supervisory and middle management level.
Contrary to the right-wing corporate talking point, It's entirely possible to discipline and fire bad employees, if management and supervisors actually know the process that they agreed to, and follow through with it. Trouble is, most of them are too lazy or stupid to do their homework, so they blame the unions for all of their woes - and naive people on the outside parrot their talking points.
When I was a manager for the state of Iowa, I fired three union employees - two for theft and one for not being able to do the work. When I worked for Westin - which was heavily unionized when they were an independent company - I saw people with years of seniority fired with just cause. So don't snowjob me about how shackled organizations are by unions.
And for the poor unfortunate who labored under the delusion of the $70 per hour auto worker, please see this link:
http://www.uaw.org/auto/11_25_08auto2.cf…
Thus endeth my Norma Rae moment.
14
Andrew - $28 is still a pretty good wage for someone who has only a high school education and no trade education (not a plumber, electrician, etc). Plus very good health and retirement benefits.
15
Man, what a bummer. The Globe and NY Times are the only newspapers I read and I really don't want either one to go away (even though both of them likely will, soon).
16
Jamie, is 5280 (also) the "right winger" who's been trolling all the comment threads? Who is the original troll, "5280"? Show your work.
17
Umm... isn't the point of a lifetime job guarantee that you don't have to worry about exactly what is happening right now?
19
GM's main problem isn't even the obligations to retired workers, though that's a significant part.
The real problem is that GM is locked into contracts with dealerships that made sense when they controlled 50% of the market but make little sense now that it's less than 20% and dropping fast. They need to shed probably 75% of their dealerships, brands and models.
That's the shit that's killing them and unlike a union contract, they can't renegotiate them unless they go into bankruptcy.
Of course, GM's been bleeding marketshare for decades and its management has done little to nothing to address with it.
The real problem is that GM is locked into contracts with dealerships that made sense when they controlled 50% of the market but make little sense now that it's less than 20% and dropping fast. They need to shed probably 75% of their dealerships, brands and models.
That's the shit that's killing them and unlike a union contract, they can't renegotiate them unless they go into bankruptcy.
Of course, GM's been bleeding marketshare for decades and its management has done little to nothing to address with it.
20
Anyone who hates unions should immediately give up their weekends off, their paid vacation, their paid holidays, their paid sick leave, their overtime pay, etc. If you value any of those things, you have unions to thank for them.
21
It should be noted that the NYT has taken the time to run the Globe straight into the ground. No paper's got the magic touch, but the Globe's website is rotten, their local coverage is collapsing, and they're quickly going from a first-class second-city paper to a third-class nothing. The Times has no love in Boston, so fuck 'em.
23
I'm assuming the "lifetime job guarantees" is something similar to what the unions won in concessions in Portland all those years ago - "as long as the Oregonian publishes 7 days a week, you will always be guaranteed a job."
URL attached. Quote: "The company's long-standing job guarantee against layoffs of full-time employees for economic or technological reasons remains in place."
URL attached. Quote: "The company's long-standing job guarantee against layoffs of full-time employees for economic or technological reasons remains in place."
24
@23, The Oregonian is not a union paper ... not the newsroom, at least.
Newhouse division Advance Publications (which owns The Oregonian) honors said policy in an effort to keep employees happy so they wouldn't feel the need to organize.
Newhouse division Advance Publications (which owns The Oregonian) honors said policy in an effort to keep employees happy so they wouldn't feel the need to organize.
25
20
Unions never made a dime for anyone.
They come in to industries that someone else made prosperous and suck the life out until there is just a dead carcass left.
Unions never made a dime for anyone.
They come in to industries that someone else made prosperous and suck the life out until there is just a dead carcass left.
26
@25-
I once again suggest that you read your labor history. There are protections for workers today that exist solely because of union action, including:
the 40 hour work week.
the 8 hour shift.
equipment safety regulations.
mandatory breaks so you can take a shit, or even just sit for 5 minutes in a shift.
workers compensation-so that when poor management practices lead to your getting injured you don't also lose your house.
Every time you complain about how it sucks that you have to work an extra shift, but at least you get over-time, thank a union.
And if a union negotiator ever said "we need to take less this year so that we have jobs next year" when an industry is printing money ( in the form of SUVs for example) the members would replace them.
If members expect the union to be a combination nanny and bodyguard and not an organization they need to participate in then the people who take over will be people who want to exploit the apathy of others.
I bet if you were ever in a position of being threatened with firing and had union procedures in place to prevent it you used those, too.
I once again suggest that you read your labor history. There are protections for workers today that exist solely because of union action, including:
the 40 hour work week.
the 8 hour shift.
equipment safety regulations.
mandatory breaks so you can take a shit, or even just sit for 5 minutes in a shift.
workers compensation-so that when poor management practices lead to your getting injured you don't also lose your house.
Every time you complain about how it sucks that you have to work an extra shift, but at least you get over-time, thank a union.
And if a union negotiator ever said "we need to take less this year so that we have jobs next year" when an industry is printing money ( in the form of SUVs for example) the members would replace them.
If members expect the union to be a combination nanny and bodyguard and not an organization they need to participate in then the people who take over will be people who want to exploit the apathy of others.
I bet if you were ever in a position of being threatened with firing and had union procedures in place to prevent it you used those, too.
27
PS-- more power to the unions, seriously. The threat to shut down the Globe is just a cynical ploy by the NYT management to scare them into making concessions. The Times does not care if the Globe tanks. The unions are bargaining hard for their share, as they should. They are going to have to make concessions, but for the Times to threaten to shut down the paper is just a piece of New York assholery.
To the one guy sockpuppeting himself about how unions suck, just consider that the last thirty years has seen a crash in union membership accompanying a crash in decent-wage jobs. The thing everyone forgets is that Unions are just like any other human institution-- they get corrupt, they need reform, they lose their way. But without them, the US is a fucking banana republic; strong labor is one of the reasons Massachusetts isn't a shithole of poverty and emptiness, like, say, Florida.
To the one guy sockpuppeting himself about how unions suck, just consider that the last thirty years has seen a crash in union membership accompanying a crash in decent-wage jobs. The thing everyone forgets is that Unions are just like any other human institution-- they get corrupt, they need reform, they lose their way. But without them, the US is a fucking banana republic; strong labor is one of the reasons Massachusetts isn't a shithole of poverty and emptiness, like, say, Florida.
32
When news finally arrives, that one of the Flagships of the Obamedia, has perished in a sea of Red-Ink. Here is my suggestion for how all of us can join together, and give the paper a send-off they so richly deserve:
" ... na-na na na, na-na na na, hey heeeey, goodbyeeee"
" ... na-na na na, na-na na na, hey heeeey, goodbyeeee"
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