Bulletins

One thousand NewsGuild workers at 13 newspapers nationwide stand united today as we begin a new, more public phase of the Guild’s #NewsMatters campaign for fair contracts with Digital First Media.

Nearly 1,000 news workers at Digital First Media have launched a nationwide revolt against job cuts and profiteering they say are threatening local journalism at the nation’s second-largest newspaper company.

Send gossip, titillating trivia and scandal to: srubenstein@sfchronicle.com Who says an ergonomics workshop is ho-hum?  Not us.  In fact, it’s practically X-rated.  Consider these words of advice from the Chronicle’s amazing ergonomist, Anna Brock: “Some employees really want to be on top (of the desk)” and “You really have to …

Press Democrat management continues to cite uncertainty in the news industry, rising health care costs and other factors as limits on what it can offer employees. Guild negotiators, also cognizant of these realities, sought reasonable pay increases in the 3 to 5 percent range and to limit increases in escalating health care costs for employees. But management balked at the offer.

Guild members and staff met for a third time with DFM management today to discuss the company’s proposal to merge the BANG and Mercury News contracts. We opted to suspend these talks and return to bargaining each contract separately. Once again, the Company had no pay proposal for workers who would be covered by the merged contract, and the Company also continued to propose that advertising employees would lose union protection.

Management is now proposing a 1 percent annual pay increase for employees who meet acceptable performance standards. Health care costs would remain the same for 2016, but by 2017, more of the financial burden would shift to employees and eventually there would be no cap on the employee share at all.

Quality journalism is one of the pillars of democracy. But the profit-driven ownership of Digital First Media, the second-largest chain of print and online news organizations in the United States, threatens to undermine our ability to fulfill our mission. Guild members at a dozen union publications throughout the DFM empire …

Nearly 1,000 employees at a dozen DFM papers have gone years without raises — in some cases, a decade — while many have had to live with actual cuts in earnings and benefits.

Guild negotiators from the BANG-East Bay and San Jose Mercury News met with Digital First Media management in a joint session to discuss the company’s proposed consolidation of the two bargaining units.

The two sides agreed to a substantial increase in cell phone stipends from $50 to $65 per month. In addition, new rules will allow parents returning to work to seek a part-time schedule for up to one year so long as the scheduling needs can be worked out with a supervisor.