Pressure builds on Baltimore Sun labor contract

Daily Record, The (Baltimore), Jun 12, 2003 by Kathleen Johnston Jarboe

Strike preparations continue at The Baltimore Sun as the June 24 contract deadline approaches and key issues affecting its 600-member union remain on the bargaining table.

While newspaper management has begun recruiting and training replacement workers to sell ads, write the articles and take photos in the event of a strike, union members have stepped up efforts to criticize the paper and its new Tribune Co. owner for its bargaining tactics.

"The Sun is spending a lot of money, and has been since the beginning of bargaining, on scabs. You contrast that with what they're doing on the table and the guild has moved a lot and the Sun has offered virtually nothing," said Lori Calderone, a negotiator for the Sun's union.

Efforts to call attention to the Sun's tactics have ranged from protesting at Tuesday night's baseball game between the Baltimore Orioles and Tribune-owned Chicago Cubs to reporters boycotting television appearances on media partner WMAR-TV Channel 2 and asking replacement workers to leave.

The recruiting of replacement workers, which began at least a month before negotiations were scheduled to end, has become one of the sorest points in negotiations.

"The scabs are infuriating people, and I'm sure scaring them as well," Calderone said.

Early Tuesday morning about a dozen union members organized to meet the replacement workers already training at the Sun.

Two vans from the Tremont Hotel in Baltimore dropped off nine workers that morning, but none would take the fliers guild members tried to give them.

"We just want them to understand our point of view," said photographer Amy Davis, who helped in the effort.

Calderone and other guild members have said such recruiting shows Sun management was planning for contract talks to stall.

But management said such actions were a necessary precaution.

"The Baltimore Sun has a promise to this community that it will publish a daily newspaper. And it has kept that promise for more that 30 years," said Mireille Grangenois, vice president of marketing and interactive media.

"We're not going to let a work stoppage ... stop us from publishing," Grangenois said.

To show their good faith in bargaining, management has offered union workers $1,000 bonuses if a contract is approved by the time the current four-year agreement ends.

But union members have called the offer a bribe.

At issue in the labor dispute are company proposals to cut sick days, charge more for health insurance, freeze raises of top earners for a year and allow the company to switch employees to different jobs as needed, regardless of pay differences.

The company says such changes are necessary to compete in the changing media world and mirror agreements made by guild members at its top competitor, The Washington Post.

But guild members say the company has done little to prove the need for such changes and has made few compromises at the bargaining table while the guild has already offered to lower its compensation requests. Union leaders were requesting annual 6 percent increases and have dropped the request to 4.25 percent annually.

"I've never been in a bargaining process where two weeks from the end there has been so little exchange," Calderone said.

The two sides also have disagreed over whether union members should be paid more to appear on television interviews. The newspaper has a content sharing agreement with ABC affiliate WMAR in Baltimore that promotes upcoming stories by allowing its reporters to be interviewed for the channel's nightly news segment.

Last week, some reporters started refusing to appear after interviews with science reporter Frank Roylance and statehouse reporter David Nitkin were pulled because the two wore guild buttons during a May 30 interview. Roylance said they were told the button made too much visual clutter on the screen.

"Everyone has seen news programs on TV and clutter on the screen is the name of the game," Roylance said.

While Nitkin's segment never aired, Roylance said his ultimately was shown though his pin was covered by the ABC logo on the screen.

Roylance and union members doubted the decision was motivated by eye distractions. But WMAR management and Sun management have insisted the move followed station policies. The station does not allow reporters and interviewees to wear pins identifying them with groups outside a story.

"We are not pressured to run anything or put anything by the Sun on the air," said WMAR General Manager Drew Berry.

While negotiations remain tense, a labor expert said a strike was not inevitable.

"We don't have an impasse because at this point neither party has walked away from the table. The issue is when they break off talks, then it gets serious," said Lawrence J. Simpson, who teaches labor relations at the University of Baltimore's Merrick School of Business.

The last time Sun workers went on strike was 1987 when union members stopped work for six days over changes to the cost they paid for health insurance.

In 1965, a 65-day strike ended when customers started canceling subscriptions of the daily newspaper.