Santa Barbara News-Press Files Unfair Labor Practice Charge against Teamsters Union for Secondary Activity

Business Wire, Nov 11, 2006

SANTA BARBARA, Calif. -- The Santa Barbara News-Press has filed an unfair labor practice charge with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) against the Teamsters Union for threatening and coercive secondary activities directed at its distributors in violation of the National Labor Relations Act.

The charge states that the union, through its representatives, engaged in, or encouraged others to engage in, secondary activities directed at independent newspaper distributors whose livelihoods depend on selling individual copies of the News-Press from newspaper racks. Banners calling for the cancellation of the News-Press have been placed on a local newspaper rack. Single copy newspaper racks have also been vandalized with anti-News-Press graffiti, and newspapers have been stolen from the racks.

Based on the union's concerted and public campaign urging subscribers to cancel the paper, the News-Press believes that this theft and vandalism, which hurt its distributors, are attributable to the union.

The union's campaign against the News-Press most recently included reporter Melinda Burns' claim that she was fired from the paper in retaliation for her role in the union campaign. This claim is absolutely false. Ms. Burns was terminated because she violated journalistic standards by repeatedly injecting personal bias into her reporting. She continued to do so for at least five years, in spite of repeated warnings by her editors that this was unacceptable. The specifics of Ms. Burns' actions are outlined in her termination letter from Associate Editor Scott Steepleton.

Mr. Steepleton wrote, "Despite counseling, admonishment and warnings over the past five years, you have ignored this duty and consistently produced biased and one-sided reporting which promotes your own personal views. You have been given repeated warnings, and every opportunity to improve, however, you have chosen not to do so." It is this well documented history of biased reporting that resulted in the termination of Ms. Burns.

One of the latest examples of bias includes an article Ms. Burns wrote on ballot Measure D which ended up in a campaign mailer that was distributed to thousands of voters and made it appear that the News-Press was endorsing the measure.

The News-Press has an obligation to its readers to have unbiased news reporting and could not in good faith continue to tolerate such lack of balance in reporting, particularly where it would impact an election campaign.