FUTURE OF NEWSPAPERS

Life after layoff

New opportunities, new frustrations

Rebecca Rosen Lum

03 Aug 2008

Media Workers Guild

If the newspaper business really is stumbling toward extinction as some experts believe, a few of us laid-off newsroom workers are getting an early glimpse of our next evolutionary phase.

It seems to involve filling out a lot of forms, standing in lines, stifling resentment, giving depositions to lawyers, digging through old email records, weighing the pluses and minuses of becoming a "PR professional," and coming to grips with some of life's eternal questions, like: How in the hell do I pay my bills without a job?

Sally Field: That Norma Rae

In the aftermath of a July 3 bloodbath that took out 29 reporters, photographers and editors from the BANG-EB bargaining unit, we also discovered who has our backs.

"It's kind of a bitter pill to swallow when you do award-winning work and you'd think it would count for something," said Greg Urquiaga, laid off after nearly 12 years with the Contra Costa Times. "Then it comes down to, 'You're a Photographer 1B, and your position has been cut."

Urquiaga was nearing completion of a months-long multi-media presentation on the Academy of Science's African Hall when the ax fell July 3. Instead of taking the final shots of a sperm whale skeleton as planned, Urquiaga grappled with COBRA paperwork to keep his grad-student wife and 6-year-old daughter insured. 

Sara Steffens: Our Norma Rae

His layoff left him without a photographer's essential tool: When the company went from film to digital, it supplied the equipment, which was out of many photographers' price range.

"The people who had my back are the other employees -- the people who lent me cameras," he said. "The union has been good with supplying information on where and how to apply for jobs."

Yep. Solidarity forever. Despite management's assurances before our successful union vote that the safest place in the newsroom was in their laps, big brother hasn't come through.

Barbara Hernandez, late of the Contra Costa Times business desk, culls together job listings which she emails to all of us newly unemployed periodistas.

And "I'm doing great," said Guild chair and multi-award-winning social services reporter Sara Steffens. "I've got lots of time for guild work, including organizing and networking with other labor organizations. The Guild is trying to help us find our next steps."

An added bonus: More time with 2-year-old Rosie.

"It's been so great to have a few minutes walking around with her at the end of the day, looking at the ducks bobbing around the lake," Steffens said. "And this morning she met two mayors at the California Labor Federation rally, so she's already getting her first taste of power."

The Guild has developed some invaluable partnerships: Media Alliance is offering us gratis memberships til we get on our feet. Bay Area Video Coalition is working with state training dollars to put multi-media skills in our hands.

"There are so many opportunities on the Internet," said Dave Del Grande, 31-year all-sports columnist. "I would think that's the logical place for most of us to land. Hopefully I can land on my feet and everyone else will, too."

In fact, most of us hit the ground running. What's eating us now is the shredded product management is passing off as a newspaper, and the daunting task facing our former colleagues -- many of whom are now being asked to cover police, schools, and government in their respective cities.

After four rounds of layoffs at the Oakland Trib, Francine Brevetti saw coverage stretched beyond doable.

"I wasn't surprised but I was appalled,"  she said. "I was always an open critic of the paper. They had only one person covering Oakland business and the Port of Oakland. One person alone should be covering the port, but they've never done that. Their attitude is, “These are worker ants. We'll just  chew them up and spit them out.’”

In Joanna Jhanda's 10 years with the West County Times, her photos have shone a light on a poorly understood and complicated community -- Richmond.

Her husband is a traffic engineer in San Francisco, and with some streamlining of family expenses, "we'll be OK," she said.

But with the layoff, "A part of my identity was taken away," she said. "You think of every story you worked on and you well up. And at West County, we were helping people. People say, you can freelance, you can do weddings. Well, that's not the same. You're not helping anyone."

(Editor's Note: Rebecca Rosen Lum, religion writer at the Contra Costa Times, was one of the lead organizers of the Bay Area News Group-East Bay Unit of the Media Workers Guild. The NLRB-supervised election was June 13. Rosen Lum and her colleagues were laid off days later, effective July 11. Unfair labor practice charges are pending. To show your support, go to our campaign Web site and sign our petition.)