The Great Newsroom Spring-Cleaning-in-Autumn saw dumpster after dumpster filled to overflowing with the dog-eared contents of dozens of office filing cabinets. Into the dustbins of history (where they’re keeping the former Metro cars company) went notebooks full of data about the Zodiac, Synanon, Scientology, the Occupy Movement, felonies great and small, AIDS, S.F. City College, […]
Read MoreThe Society of Professional Journalists released this statement on Wednesday: In March, Sacramento police detained three journalists while they were reporting on a citizens’ protest over the fatal shooting by officers of Stephon Clark, an unarmed 22-year-old black man. The detention served no public purpose and could have been avoided if Sacramento PD had a […]
Read MoreThe Guild congratulates several of our sisters and brothers who are to receive awards in November for journalistic excellence. Julia Cheever and Daniel Montes of Bay City News Service, and Charles Desmarais and Lauren Hernandez of the San Francisco Chronicle will be honored at the San Francisco Press Club’s Greater Bay Area Journalism Awards Dinner […]
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Dear PMWG Local 39521 Members,Thank you to all who voted in the 2019 Guild Membership Referendum.Both provisions of the referendum passed, with the following results: Local Membership voted to make the Local’s lead officer an appointed role, rather than elected. Now the Executive Officer will be appointed by the Local Executive Committee. Additionally, our Interpreters […]
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Tomorrow’s DFM workers solidarity action marks the three-month countdown to contract negotiations in 12 Guild bargaining units nationwide. Join us!
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Alden Global Capital founder Randall Smith recently sold one of his many Palm Beach mansions for $5.5 million, according to the Palm Beach Daily News. The $1.9 million profit on the sale – purchased in a mansion-buying binge that began in 2013, after Alden became majority owner of DFM – would cover an annual raise of more than $3,900 for the 487 Guild-represented employees at 12 DFM newspapers nationwide.
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For Alden Global Capital, $160 million in profits is not enough. Management for Digital First Media, speaking for its corporate masters at the New York vulture fund, rejected a modified wage proposal Thursday by the unions that comprise the DFM Caucus during wage negotiations in Philadelphia.
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Union representatives will press management to increase the pay of workers at Digital First Media newspapers nationwide when wage negotiations resume on October 11 in Philadelphia. The message will be simple: Our award-winning employees deserve their share of the massive profits that DFM is earning from their work. Most DFM employees only have received one raise in 10 years.
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Union leaders representing the Denver Call Center served notice on Purple/ZVRS management this week of our intention to move our ongoing talks for a new labor agreement to Denver. The company — recently found guilty of multiple violations of federal labor law — threatened to file even more time-consuming legal appeals to keep that from happening.
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Top executives at the hedge fund that owns Digital First Media must have felt terrible that employees at the newspaper company weren’t getting any raises in 2017. So they did something about it. They gave themselves a raise.
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After 14 months of negotiations, the Chronicle and the Pacific Media Workers Guild on Wednesday reached tentative agreement on a four-year labor contract that offers an average annual merit-based pay raise of 2 percent and – for the first time – a 401(k) employer contribution and match of up to 2.5 percent of annual salary.
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DFM management came to a bargaining session empty-handed, telling a national coalition of NewsGuild representatives that the company’s hedge fund ownership intends to keep employee pay frozen companywide to help maintain its profits. Alden Global Capital, principal owner of Digital First Media, has earned worldwide notoriety for its ruthless staff cuts and double-digit profit margins. The ongoing damage to newsrooms across the country has triggered protests from New York to Denver to the Bay Area.
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An overwhelming majority of the 63 unionized workers in the Honolulu Star-Advertiser newsroom voted on April 25 to ratify a five-year contract with owner Oahu Publications Inc.
Read MoreIn a near-unanimous vote, workers at The Maui News on Monday voted to ratify a two-year contract with newspaper ownership that runs to April of 2020. The vote was verified Tuesday. With more than three-quarters of eligible members submitting a ballot, 32 votes were cast for the new agreement, which calls for maintaining wages and […]
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Bargaining continued in late January, early February at all four McClatchy California units (The Modesto Bee, The Fresno Bee, The Sacramento Bee and News Desk West). Full contracts are up at Modesto, Fresno and News Desk West while Sacramento has a reopener. The guild and company were able to narrow bargaining to a few core issues during each of the sessions. They include the new metrics for page view goals, seniority language in the case of layoffs, minimum salary levels and merit pay scales, equipment reimbursement, and drug policy.
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