Meanwhile, court interpreters in the Central Valley (Region 3) continued their fight for a contract in mediation Thursday. Interpreters there still face court proposals to send them home early without pay or advanced notice and implement of Video Remote Interpreting without input from the California Federation of Interpreters.

CFI has questioned court administrators’ interest in implementing Video Remote Interpreting since research shows it has limited use, requires slower interpreting and does not ensure better language access. Study after study has concluded that in-person interpretation is more effective and efficient.

These proposed changes in the way we work represent an attack on job security and threaten to dismantle the profession and meaningful access to qualified interpreters.

Interpreters are talking about uniting to defend our jobs and the profession overall, well beyond these negotiations, recognizing that employees and contractors alike are vulnerable if the courts succeed with their agenda.

Here’s what interpreters are saying about the threat to guaranteed pay for guaranteed hours…(1st in a series of videos):

Court Interpreters: In Our Own Words

Region 2 interpreters faced the same proposals as Region 3 until Wednesday’s deal. In exchange for CFI Region 2′s  compromise to allow Video Remote Interpreting, the court administration withdrew the proposal to release interpreters at 3 p.m. without pay or advance notice.

The tentative agreement in Region 2 includes:

•  Full time members would receive three $1,000 bonuses, one upon ratification, one in fall 2013, and one in fall 2014. Bonuses on the same schedule would be $750 for part timers and $500 for intermittent interpreters.
•  Dual-language interpreters would receive a 10% pay differential for each day they are assigned to provide services in two languages in which they are qualified to work.
•  Continuing education reimbursements would go up to $750 every two years (and remain prorated for part-time employees).
• Any layoffs would be by strict seniority.
• Modification of unit work language stating courts can assign additional “interpreter services as required.”

CFI’s Region 2 will schedule a ratification meeting with members to discuss and vote on the tentative agreement.

CFI’s Region 3 bargaining team will return to mediation on June 17 in Sacramento.

A unit of the Pacific Media Workers Guild, CFI represents about 900 court interpreters employed by Superior Courts of California. The unit is divided into four regions, with each bargaining separate contracts with the courts.

HEARST CORPORATION ANNOUNCES NEW LEADERSHIP TEAM AT THE SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE

New Publisher Jeffrey M. Johnson Brings More Than 20 Years of Media Experience;
Digital Trailblazer Joanne K. Bradford Joins as President

After More Than 35 Years of Newspaper Leadership, Frank J. Vega to Retire

NEW YORK, May 23, 2013 – Hearst Corporation today announced new leadership at its leading California newspaper the San Francisco Chronicle. Joanne K. Bradford, 49, has been named president and Jeffrey M. Johnson, 53, has been named publisher. Frank J. Vega, 64, retires as publisher and will continue as chairman through the transition. The San Francisco Chronicle and SFGate.com are the Bay Area’s most-read source of local and national news.

The announcements were made by Hearst Corporation CEO Frank A. Bennack, Jr., and Hearst Newspapers President Mark Aldam and are effective June 3. Both executives will report to Aldam.

Commenting on the announcements, Bennack said, “Joanne and Jeff will be a great team to take the San Francisco Chronicle to the next level. They have deep publishing and new media experience and believe in the power of great content with a valued brand. We are excited to work with them to redefine the choices for how and where readers can experience the trusted Chronicle content they depend on.”

Aldam added, “Frank Vega has had a highly successful tenure at the San Francisco Chronicle and has been an important part of the transformation of this business into a multiplatform news organization with a suite of print and digital products that serve readers and are important partners for local businesses. We are happy he will continue to support the transition to a new leadership team and wish him all the best.”

“It is a dynamic time for media where new distribution opportunities abound and we intend to make sure the Chronicle and SFGate remain the information leader in the Bay Area,” Bradford said. “The Bay Area has always been my home and I couldn’t be more excited to be back here working with Jeff to further the Chronicle’s important role in Northern California by focusing on our audience’s connection with our content and our important relationships with businesses.”

“With Hearst’s demonstrated support, the Chronicle is a successful and growing brand that is well positioned to continue to serve the Bay Area,” Johnson said. “I am excited to work with Joanne and the entire Chronicle team as we explore new ways to connect to this dynamic region and provide valued news and information to our readers through innovative print and digital products.”

Joanne K. Bradford

Most recently, Bradford served as chief revenue and marketing officer for Demand Media beginning in 2010. In that position, she led Demand Media’s marketing, sales and corporate communications efforts. For two years prior to joining Demand Media, Bradford served as senior vice president at Yahoo!, where she was responsible for North American revenue generation activities and also struck innovative branded entertainment partnerships.

From 2001 to 2008, Bradford was at Microsoft as corporate vice president and chief media officer of MSN Media Network, where she helped grow online revenue to over $2 billion and expanded the company into in-game advertising and self-serve search ad platforms. Bradford began her career at McGraw-Hill, where she was vice president of sales and marketing at BusinessWeek.

Bradford currently serves on the boards of the Ad Council and CARE. She is also an advisor to Greycroft Partners and LeanIn.org. In 2010, Bradford was named to the Mediaweek 50, Adweek Media’s annual list of the most influential people in media. She has a bachelor’s degree in journalism from San Diego State University.

Jeffrey M. Johnson

Prior to Hearst, Johnson was an operating partner at The Yucaipa Companies focusing on media investments from 2007 to 2013. Before that, he was president, publisher and chief executive officer of the Los Angeles Times from 2005 to 2006, where he was responsible for the newspaper’s digital and print operations including editorial, advertising, circulation, consumer sales and marketing, finance and technology. Prior to being publisher, Johnson served as senior vice president and general manager of the Times from 2000 to 2004.

Johnson has over 20 years of publishing experience and has held senior management positions at Landoll Inc., the Chicago Tribune and Orlando Sentinel. Earlier in his career, he held positions at KPMG.

Johnson holds a bachelor’s degree in accounting from the University of Illinois and an MBA from The University of Chicago. He has served as board chair for the United Way of Los Angeles and on the board of the Metropolitan YMCA of Greater Los Angeles.

Frank J. Vega

Vega has been president and publisher of the San Francisco Chronicle since January 2005. He will continue in his role as chairman through the end of the year.

Prior to Hearst, Vega spent 26 years with Gannett Co. Inc., most recently as president and CEO of Detroit Newspapers since 1991. Before Detroit Newspapers, he served in a variety of positions with Gannett, including a tenure at the Bay Area’s Oakland Tribune. Vega was the vice president of circulation for USA Today when the flagship was launched. He was publisher of Florida Today from 1984 to 1991, and was also a regional president, where he oversaw a number of newspapers owned by the company.

About the San Francisco Chronicle
The San Francisco Chronicle is the largest newspaper in Northern California and the second largest on the West Coast. Acquired by Hearst Corporation in 2000, the San Francisco Chronicle was founded in 1865 by Charles and Michael de Young and has been awarded six Pulitzer Prizes for journalistic excellence. Combined with its online home, SFGate.com, the San Francisco Chronicle reaches 1.7 million Bay Area adults each week.

About Hearst Corporation
Hearst Corporation (www.hearst.com) is one of the nation’s largest diversified media and information companies. Its major interests include ownership of 15 daily and 36 weekly newspapers, including the Houston Chronicle, San Antonio Express-News and Albany Times Union; hundreds of magazines around the world, including Good Housekeeping, Cosmopolitan, ELLE and O, The Oprah Magazine; 29 television stations, which reach a combined 18 percent of U.S. viewers; ownership in leading cable networks, including Lifetime, A&E, HISTORY and ESPN; significant holdings in automotive, electronic and medical/pharmaceutical business information companies; a 50 percent stake in global ratings agency Fitch Group; Internet and marketing services businesses; television production; newspaper features distribution; and real estate. Follow us on Twitter @HearstCorp.

Contact:
Paul Luthringer, 212-649-2540, paul@hearst.com
Lisa Bagley, 212-649-2337, lbagley@hearst.com

Related articles

• Hearst Taps Demand Media’s Bradford and Yucaipa’s Johnson to “Redefine” the San Francisco Chronicle

Deadline June 15, 2013

Now is the time for students to apply for a Pacific Media Workers Guild Scholarship.  Our scholarship program is financed mainly by generous contributions from our Retiree Unit members. Applicants are eligible for up to $500.

Dependent family members of any Pacific Media Workers Guild unit member in good standing are eligible. (Contact us if you have questions about membership or eligibility.)

Graduating high school seniors entering college in the fall are given first preference. We will also consider current college undergraduates who have not previously applied for one of our grants, and who are dependent family members of any Pacific Media Workers Guild unit member, or student members of the Freelancers unit.

Selection criteria include: academic achievements, work experience, community involvement activities, educational plans, financial need and hardship consideration.

Download the application here. (You can also find it under the pull-down RESOURCES tab at the top of the mediaworkers.org website.) The deadline is June 15, 2013.

History of the Guild

We are Local 39521 of The Newspaper Guild, a sector of the Communications Workers of America, one of the nation’s largest affiliates of the AFL-CIO, the “union for the Information Age.” We are a strong and diverse Local representing more than 2,000 media workers, court interpreters and union staffs throughout California and Hawaii.

We were chartered in 1936 as one of the first locals of the Newspaper Guild — a union of newspaper reporters that eventually grew to represent all kinds of newspaper workers.

Our local represents employees in most of Northern and Central California’s largest and most-respected newspapers. Our most recent merger brought the Hawaii Newspaper Guild into our local in January 2011, so we changed our name to Pacific Media Workers Guild. Previously we were known as the California Media Workers Guild, and before that the Northern California Newspaper Guild. Even further back, we were known as the San Francisco-Oakland Newspaper Guild. Today, our biggest unit is the California Federation of Interpreters, which includes more than 800 professional court interpreters in Superior Courts statewide. We have offices in downtown San Francisco, Honolulu, Sacramento and Los Angeles.

APPLY NOW!

Members of the Hawaii Tribune-Herald bargaining committee caucused during talks Wednesday and Thursday in Honolulu. Management has shown little interest in serious bargaining, refusing to narrow a huge list of takeaway demands including a big jump in health care costs, pay freeze, end of seniority protection against layoff, unfettered right to subcontract two departments and onerous “social media policy.” From left, Heather Ahue, Derrick DePledge, Colin Stewart and Alicia Tanaka. PMWG photo 2013.

Your bargaining committee met with representatives of the company on Wednesday and Thursday in Waikiki to discuss a new collective bargaining agreement.

The guild suggested that the scope of the negotiations be narrowed to focus on about a half dozen priority issues, including wages, job security, medical and management rights.

The guild proposed a pay raise, signing bonus, and a one-year no layoff clause but also indicated that workers would be willing to pay a greater share of medical insurance premiums – 5 percent for Kaiser, up from zero; 15 percent for HMSA and HPH, up from 10 percent. The company would pay 95 percent of Kaiser premiums and 85 percent of HMSA and HPH premiums.

The guild also proposed that management be allowed to subcontract work in the mailroom and ad production through voluntary termination incentives, or buyouts. If an insufficient number of workers volunteer and layoffs become necessary, the no layoff clause would be lifted and the workers targeted would be eligible for enhanced severance packages.

The company rejected most of the guild’s proposals but took the subcontracting recommendation under advisement.

The company also proposed to cover 75 percent of medical insurance premiums, up from 72.5 percent in the company’s last offer. Under the existing contract, the company covers 100 percent of the Kaiser premiums and 90 percent of the HMSA and HPH premiums.

The guild has told the company that greater cost sharing for medical would only be considered in the context of wage increases. The company has proposed no wage increases.

The guild also presented the company with an extensive information request to help the guild respond to the wide range of contract changes the company has sought since talks began last August. The information request was prompted by the company’s decision not to narrow the scope of the negotiations.

The next round of negotiations is scheduled for June 5 and June 6 in Hilo.

MEANWHILE…..the Honolulu office is moving……

The Hawaii Guild has long been based in the Hawaii Government Employees Association building at 888 Mililani St., near the historic seat of Hawaii’s independent monarchy. The new office is smaller, adjacent to the old office, but still fits both Honolulu headquarters of the Guild and Typographical Union.

Business manager Heather Ahue was surrounded by boxes and decades’ worth of union paperwork on Friday while moving the Pacific Media Workers Guild’s Hawaii operations into compact new office space in Honolulu. PMWG photo 2013.

Chronicle worker Bradley Ramacher sees Hearst offer as a pay cut. Photo by Mike Kepka 2013.

Hearst offer is “cracker jacks”

Hearst is becoming an off-balance tightrope act above the newspaper and media circus, and the show could now come at the further expense of its supporting performers at the San Francisco Chronicle.

Hearst boasts billion-dollar profits each year, giving the advertising world the impression of stability, solidity, and continued successful performance. But at the most critical point yet of the Chronicle’s lifespan Hearst refuses to lend a hand to the staff who help keep the tightrope taught on a daily basis.

The 1.5% proposed raise for compensation in the expensive Bay Area is equivalent to Hearst buying the staff a box of crackerjacks with each paycheck. Taking an essential “pay cut” in order to continue receiving medical benefits could leave many supporting staff swinging back and forth on a trapeze between their loved jobs or a higher-paying future.

The San Francisco Chronicle’s foundation is being put at risk in order to allow the Hearst Media show to go on, and pressure will continue to build on the shoulders of the supporting performers if they are neglected a helping hand from one of the richest businesses in the nation.

– Bradley Ramacher

Bradley has worked at the San Francisco Chronicle for almost three years.  He started as an administrative assistant and now works in the Finance department.

Katy Van Sant and her daughter Lyla in their home in Oakland. Van Sant is advocating for a raise for court interpreters.
Photo by David Bacon.

For one, I have chosen to keep my daughter in day care until kindergarten because preschool is too expensive. Instead I pay $750 a month for a family-run day care in a dangerous neighborhood. A daycare in a safer neighborhood or a preschool would cost me twice as much but the $1,500 a month would be nearly half my take home pay.

I drive a ’97 Toyota Corolla with more than 200K miles on it, but I cannot afford to get a more reliable, safer car.

For the last six years, I have not gone on a vacation that doesn’t involve staying at a relative’s home. I don’t have a housecleaner, don’t belong to a gym and have no college savings plan for my daughter.

Despite the fact that I only pay $1,000 a month for housing because I rent from my parents, I still have to moonlight to make ends meet. I do transcription and translation work in the evenings and on weekends. If I did not have that work I would have serious problems paying my bills.

California court interpreters have not received a wage increase in more than five years. Meanwhile our healthcare costs have risen steeply and inflation has gone up 11% from 2007 to 2013. The California Federation of Interpreters proposed increasing Region 2 and 3 interpreters’ wages based on years of service but courts continue rejecting the raise.

According to a survey CFI did recently, 64 percent of the interpreters in Region 2 find it necessary to take on extra work to make ends meet. Seventy-five percent have had their healthcare costs go up and 50 percent have had their pension contributions go up in the last five years.

Many of my colleagues report struggling to pay their rent or mortgage, living month-to-month, having to resort to financial support from family members, making sacrifices in areas like dentistry, school choices and the neighborhoods where they live.

In my case, health insurance has gone from 0 to $2,235 per year. Combining this with the lack of a raise means that, in effect, I have gotten a 14 percent wage reduction over that last 5 years. The increases we are proposing in bargaining will not even bring me back to where I was in 2007 as far as my buying power.

This is a job that requires years of study as well as an innate skill. I put in many, many years of study to become a certified interpreter. I did not grow up bilingual.  I took four years of Spanish in high school, followed by four years in college to earn a degree in Spanish literature. I studied one year abroad in Spain, lived in Mexico for two years after that and studied interpreting for two years at San Francisco State University and on own.  That’s a total of 12 years of study to become an interpreter. And I’m not a slow learner. I have surveyed my colleagues and all have put in a similar amount of time and study in order to be able to meet the standards needed for court interpreting.

A profession that demands the years of study and level of skill that interpreting requires, and that is vital for the functioning of the courts, deserves a salary capable of supporting a family.

___

Katy Van Sant is a certified court interpreter in the Superior Court of Alameda County and a member of the CFI Region 2 bargaining committee. Her first person account first appeared on the California Federation of Interpreters website

Related articles

• Guild Interpreters vote yes on strike authorization
• Court interpreters stand strong on full day’s pay

On a typical foggy May day, delegates t0 the Bay Area maritime trades department council met aboard the S.S. Jeremiah O’Brien, docked at pier 45 in San Francisco.

About 30 union leaders gathered in the mess hall of the Liberty ship to hear a presentation by Pacific Media Workers Guild Executive Officer Carl Hall.  Hall spoke about the changing landscape of the Bay Area’s print news. But first he acknowledged the Titanic movie one-sheets that were posted at the back of the mess hall.

Executive Officer Carl Hall discusses the future of the Guild on the SS Jeremiah O’Brien. Photo by Kat Anderson 2013.

“Running the Newspaper Guild is like being the tuner of the player piano on the Titanic.  Even if you get it right, you’re still going down,” quipped Hall.

Hall went on to observe that newspaper unions are “as troubled as you can get;” that mass-produced print journalism is no longer the center of the media world.  The Guild used to represent close to 1,200 newspaper workers in San Francisco, counting newsroom, advertising and office support at the Chronicle, Examiner and San Francisco Newspaper Agency. During the newspaper strike of 1994, close to a dozen different unions joined on the picket lines — some 2,200 workers, top to bottom.

Now, the Guild represents under 300 members at the Chronicle. The Teamsters represent a much-reduced workforce of drivers and news vendors.  Everything else has either been outsourced or eliminated.

To survive, Hall said, the Guild has embarked on a program to diversify, organizing court interpreters and other language-service workers, developing a vibrant freelance unit, reaching out to students, and collaborating with nonprofits to fight for quality jobs and journalism.

“It’s no time to get mired in self-pity,” Hall said.

One element has involved working on alternative ownership models.  As Hall put it, “Why don’t we own the means of production?”  Labor and other progressive organizations should be putting together consortia to buy media, he said, spanning print, broadcast and online forms.

Despite having no capital to add of its own, the Guild helped create a nonprofit, The Bay Citizen, San Francisco startup news organization funded in large part by the generosity of the late philanthropist Warren Hellman.  More recently, the Guild played a role in getting The Press Democrat in Santa Rosa purchased by a consortium of local investors. 

The Pacific Media Workers Guild, the product of four mergers of smaller Guild locals, has been at the forefront of national efforts by the Newspaper Guild to restructure local chapters.  The local has been an innovator in other ways, throughout its history.  During the strike of 1994, for instance, the San Francisco Free Press online editions were recognized as the first general interest news service to be produced on the internet.

The Guild created a freelance unit so that those without traditional employment relationships can still be in a union. The unit provides training workshops, issues media credentials, operates a referral service, and recently added reduced-cost health insurance to the array of services available to members.

Studies show a growing share — more than 40 percent by one recent estimate — of the the American workforce consists of  ”non-employee employees,” as Hall put it, arguing that unions like the Media Workers must find a way for these workers to help rebuild a labor community.

Investing in the next generation is also part of the Guild’s mission.  To reach out to high schools and colleges to teach future journalists the value of unionism is high on the Guild’s agenda.  Young people today don’t know much about unions, might not know anyone in a union, and aren’t exposed to decent reporting about unions.  It’s labor’s job to connect with these young people and tell them what the labor movement is all about.

Maritime Council delegates enjoy lunch in the mess hall of the Liberty Ship. Photo by Kat Anderson 2013.

Veteran waterfront and construction-trade labor leaders in the audience quizzed Hall on how to educate young people about the positive aspects of unions at a time when union members are portrayed as “thugs” and “miscreants.”  Hall responded that the best way to combat such misconceptions is by spending time with the young people – visiting schools and making presentations, attending job fairs, setting up mentorship programs and marketing apprenticeship programs.  ”The labor movement ought to set up a “Labor in the Schools” program,” suggested Hall.  ”No one’s going to do that for us.”

Apropos of the location of the day’s meeting, Hall reminded the audience that actions of the waterfront unions were critical to the Guild’s formation in the 1930s.  Members of the ILWU have marched with their cargo hooks from the waterfront warehouses to the front door of the newspaper offices downtown, calling on the media barons to deal fairly with the Newspaper Guild during its formative years.

The Guild would never have gotten established on the West Coast without the support of unions such as the Teamsters and the ILWU, Hall said.

“Our future may be all about change,” Hall said. “But one thing we won’t change is our commitment to solidarity.”

# # #

Gunnar Lundeberg is President and Nick Celona is Secretary-Treasurer of the San Francisco Bay Area and Vicinity Port Maritime Council.  FX Crowley served as President Pro Tempore of the meeting in May in Lundeberg’s absence.  Click here to learn more about the Sailors Union of the Pacific.

The end agreement came with handshakes and smiles, but came after a long, tense day of bargaining at the Sacramento Double Tree hotel. Throughout the several months of bargaining, management talked about the need for flexibility during these tough economic times, while guild sought to protect existing rights, benefits and provide some level of certainty for employees. The end result is a series of agreements that reflects the guild’s effort to find the middle ground and, while containing many elements deemed unsavory to the guild, it’s a contract we can endorse for ratification given the context of the environment and the provisions ensuring jobs for every affected Modesto employee.

Representing the Bee were attorney Bob Ford, human resources director Linda Brooks, Bee VP of finance Gary Strong, features editor Rita Blomster, advertising manager Sheryl Judge, and Modesto Bee human resources vice president Cathy Allison. Representing the Guild were guild representative Sara Steffens, reporter Ed Fletcher and Bee copy editor Ed Fishbein.

Modesto transfer agreement:

• All Modesto employees are guaranteed a job in the Sacramento Production Center at the new agreed upon wage scale (largely unchanged from existing Sacramento desk wages)
• Those opting not to take the job are entitled to severance
• Modesto employees who take positions in Sacramento will have a 60 day trial period to resign and receive their full severance
• All Modesto employees (full-time, part-time, on-call) who take a position in Sacramento will receive one week of “transition bonus” equal to a week’s pay for every year of service with the company up to 13 weeks
• Modesto people are guaranteed either current wage or the production center wage scale, whichever is greater.

For more details on the Modesto transfer agreement, click here.

Production Center Agreement:

• 2-year agreement
• Company has the right to trigger four weeks of furloughs over the next three years
• Wage scale creates three lower tier positions with midpoint wages at $20 an hour
• Company has right to turn four full-time employees into part-time employees (with benefits)
• Company has right to employ up to seven long-term interns/student clerks
• Company has strengthened/clarified vacation burndown rights
• Employees working 22.5 hours a week entitled to sick leave
• Language on outside activities/freelancing unchanged
• Most other language mirrors newsroom/advertising agreement
• Rehire list intact

Newsroom/advertising Agreement:

• 3-year agreement
• Online sales added to advertising evaluations, sales comprise 60 percent of score
• Company has the right to trigger four weeks of furloughs over the next three years, ad sales exempt
• Company has right to turn four full-time employees into part-time employees (with benefits)
• Company has right to employ up to seven long-term interns/student clerks
• Company has strengthened/clarified vacation burndown rights
• Employees working 22.5 hours a week entitled to sick leave
• Language on outside activities/freelancing unchanged
• Rehire list intact

Once finalized versions of the agreements are prepared, they will be posted here and a ratification date will be set. We’ll also prepare documents that more clearly state the changes.

Thanks to everyone who helped during this process including the guild leadership team and members who offered feedback.

Related articles

• Tentative agreement for Modesto copy desk move

Related articles

• Guild Interpreters vote yes on strike authorization

SF Chronicle-Guild
Bargaining Bulletin #21

Chronicle Guild negotiators broke off talks Tuesday with the Hearst Corp. after enduring yet another rendition of the same old company song and dance routine.

Talks for a new labor agreement at the Chronicle have been under way for nearly a year, focusing mainly on pay and health care benefits. The management has shown no willingness to reach a fair compromise since proposing last fall to move Chronicle Guild members into the management health plan, raising our costs dramatically even after taking a proposed 1.5 percent annual pay raise into account.

When talks resumed Tuesday, the union team made it clear that we expect better from Hearst. We told the Hearst lawyers, who met with us via videoconference from New York, that the company could settle with our committee in one of two ways:

1. Limit the health care premium increases our members could face in 2015 and 2016, the last two years of the proposed four-year contract; or
2. Sweeten its pay offer for the two out-years.

The company seems to have difficulty accepting the fact that its offer amounts to a pay cut for most of our members, assuming our members keep about the same level of medical coverage after transitioning into the Hearst benefit plan.  We could avoid the big pay cuts only by accepting a Hearst option of cheap “high deductible” health coverage, which would mean that members would bear huge medical bills if they ever need more than wellness visits.

As usual, the Hearst lawyers simply repeated their now aging October 2012 proposal, showing no interest in moving toward a rational settlement.

Talks ended after about 90 minutes. No new dates were scheduled. Afterward, the Guild contacted the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service to see if a federal mediator might help us find a way to fruitful discussions.

We will take all appropriate steps to be sure our members are heard.  As Guild Executive Officer Carl Hall said during negotiations today, “We have many eloquent members in this guild. We have been trying to convey a message to Hearst that our members do not accept what looks like a pay cut.  Management has refused to acknowledge that.  I guess we have not been eloquent enough. We are going to find ways to be more eloquent so that Hearst can hear us.”

Present: Mike Cabanatuan, Autumn Grace, Carl Hall and Kat Anderson for the Guild.

Suzy Cain, Cathy Rommelfanger, Aryn Sobo (via video) and Carolene Eaddy (via video) for Management.