Fighting Back
I work as a reporter at The Patriot-News and am president of the union there. Local 38016 of The Newspaper Guild to be exact. Until the Guild merged with the Communication Workers of America, we were Local 16, the low number reflecting the fact that we've been around since, I think, the late 1930s. Obviously, I'm not the first president! And I hope I won't be the last.
Yesterday afternoon, as I was preparing that Vietnamese chicken recipe, I received a two phone calls and a text message in quick succession that a city-side reporter at the newspaper, Pete Shellem, and a sports copy editor, Fred Sprunk, had launched an attempt to decertify the union. If they succeed, our union, our contract, and the limitations it places on the company's ability to control our lives 24/7 will disappear. We have good pay and benefits, including fully-paid health insurance that the company is trying to take away. The trick is that they have promised, sort of, to keep it free for the non-union departments in the building. That's the decertification carrot.
Why did Shellem and Sprunk do this? I don't know what Sprunk's problem is. Shellem, I'm told, has a personal grievance with a former Guild president dating back several years, which he didn't disclose in his letter seeking signatures on a decert petition. He says it's not about health insurance, because he has coverage through his wife, who works for the Capital Area Intermediate Unit. Ironically, she--and he--got that coverage through the union representing teachers and other professionals at the I.U. Now Shellem argues that we'll do better without a union.
So the Guild executive committee is having an emergency meeting tonight to finalize a strategy for defeating this petition and protecting our members. I don't think they'll get more than a handful of signatures, but we won't leave anything to chance. All I know for sure is that this will tear the newsroom apart and be a great cause of stress for a lot of people. And for what?