Star Tribune Teamsters vote no to contract concessions

Star Tribune Teamsters vote no to contract concessions

By Paul Schmelzer Aug 01 2008 12:07PM | 2 Comments
The proposed contract concessions were "unprecedented": Star Tribune management wanted to cut wages of union drivers, pressmen and mailers by 10 percent, and those who are contractually due for automatic raises wouldn't get them. Plus the press operators at the paper would've lost one week of vacation a year and the ability to earn overtime wages for working back-to-back shifts. But members of the papers' Teamsters chapters agreed to reject the concessions yesterday, despite two locals voting to approve.

According to a source close to the union, "All three contracts are dead in the water, and management has to start over at the beginning." The pressman's union, GCC1-M, rejected the deal by a vote of 77 to 27, while the drivers (Local 638) and mailers (Local 120) voted to approve, 83 to 27 in favor and 92 to 42 respectively. Prior to the vote the unions agreed that unless all three locals voted to approve, the contract would die.

"The pressmen are heroes," says the source. "They're the first union to reject Avista's concessions" -- a reference to the New York private-equity firm that bought the paper in 2007.

There was opposition within the ranks. At three meetings held at Teamster 120's office in Blaine yesterday, members of all three unions met to hear pros and cons of the package. Some argued that a no-vote might lead to the paper's bankruptcy. Others countered by reciting quotes by Strib publisher Chris Harte's assurance that they have no intention of declaring bankruptcy.

Full Article

WAY TO GO GUYS! Unions ~ Because work is not a democracy

{on edit:} The lead story on our internal web site:

StarTribune.com page views exceed 3.5 million per day and the sales successes just keep rolling in as a result!

by Catherine Smith, Director of Circulation Marketing and Internal Communications
August 4, 2008 - Traffic to StarTribune.com is skyrocketing, and the attractive audience of almost 6 million unique visitors a month is leading to increased advertising sales. Just last week Thursday, we went beyond the 3.5 million page view mark for that day alone which almost got us to 75 million page views for the month. Keep in mind these are very tough gains to achieve being it is the middle of the summer.
The impact of all of this exposure is evident in the resulting advertising sales. "We have averaged almost 100 new contracts each of the past three months," said Digital President Dan Shorter. "What's most surprising is that July is usually a quiet sales month for digital, and yet we closed about 100 deals. Most of the business is either first time advertisers or current customers renewing for significantly more than they spent last year."

Long time no see. Nice you stopped by.

OS

'Bout them feisty guys in the Printers Union. They rock.

And good to see you too! :hi: :toast: