The bargaining table

[Joe Williams]

If your union faces contract talks this year, what would you prefer the bargaining committee to do:

-- Get you all raises that are long overdue, even though you know that such a move might lead to more buyouts or layoffs. That means some people will make more money this year while other people will stop making money entirely. Also, those raises won't really be raises once you adjust for the extra hours worked to make up for the vanished colleagues.

-- Accept a frozen or nearly frozen wage, getting concessions that the downsizing will stop for some agreed-upon period of time. People might feel lousy about continuing to work at a job that offers few or no raises, but they might feel better knowing that their sacrifices kept a few family breadwinners employed.

-- Negotiate wage give-backs to keep colleagues employed and keep journalistic ambitions high. If money can be diverted from salaries, maybe you could still afford a few pricey trips in pursuit of big stories. Or a Washington bureau. Or coffee filters that don't have to be dried out and used at least twice.

Watching what owners have done so far, citing circulation drops, the loss of ad revenue and the recession overall, can anyone expect them to be anything but ruthless in union contract talks? What sort of stomach would your average journalist have at the moment for a strike?

 

[STLIrish]

Problem is, I'm not sure any agreement along the lines of Option #2 would be worth the paper it's printed on. Any publicly-traded company will downsize if that's what they (or the stockholders) feel they need to do, and certainly won't sign away the rights to do so in exchange for a wage freeze.
I'm also not really certain I'd trust them with Option #3. Yeah, they might say the give-backs will help fund travel and the Washington bureau, and they might even mean it for the first year. But when trouble hits, travel and DC get cut and those give-backs are going to the bottom line.
So I guess that leaves Option #1, which certainly isn't ideal.
And, no, I can't imagine much appetite for a strike in my newsroom. But I don't figure management wants one, either, things being as uncertain as they are these days. So I guess I'd be content to wait it out for a reasonable deal, if it comes to that.

 

[Joe Williams]

And, no, I can't imagine much appetite for a strike in my newsroom. But I don't figure management wants one, either, things being as uncertain as they are these days.

But if a newspaper is losing money, won't it lose less money -- or lose money at a slower rate -- by not publishing rather than publishing? Think that's how it went for hockey or baseball or one of them sports during one or more work stoppages. Teams were better off financially by not playing than by playing, at least short term.

 

[Baron Scicluna]

I'd go with option 2.

You really can't trust the company's word if you were to do either option 2 or 3, but at least option 2 would buy some employees more time to find another job. Option 1 means some people make more money, some others get the boot right away.

Option 3 shouldn't be done. Papers had 20-plus percent profit margins all these years and NOW they are struggling because it's only 18 percent? Journalists work hard enough for the low pay they get. They shouldn't have to give any of it back to the greedsters.

 

[cranberry]

It's impossible to respond to any of the above without detailed financial information from the newspaper publisher.

 

[STLIrish]

But if a newspaper is losing money, won't it lose less money -- or lose money at a slower rate -- by not publishing rather than publishing?

What newspapers/newspaper companies are actually losing money? They just make a little less than they used to. Big difference.

And the risk they run by halting publication is that advertisers leave and never come back. Which is much more likely than, say, lifelong baseball fans never coming back to baseball, given the vast array of ways companies can spend their advertising dollars.

 

[cranberry]

Watching what owners have done so far, citing circulation drops, the loss of ad revenue and the recession overall, can anyone expect them to be anything but ruthless in union contract talks? What sort of stomach would your average journalist have at the moment for a strike?

In my experience, journalists as a collective are pretty gutless when it comes to contract negotiations. Too many view their jobs as some priestly service to fellow man instead of, well, a job, and publishers take advantage of that every time they get a chance. I assure you, publishers realize they're running a business within an industry.

The other problem with journalists as union members is that most journalists (in general) have no clue how to stick together and build consensus. All too often they begin breaking off into factions before the negotiations even begin.

Of course there have been some pleasant exceptions to this but, overall, I've been pretty disappointed by the way people in this industry react come contract time.

 

[playthrough]

I'd go for the raises if possible. Everyone knows that layoffs/buyouts are part of the business and they're not going away. So why not get everything you can, while you can? Looking out for the health of the industry makes for nice chitchat, but agreeing to freezes and (barf) give-backs is being too generous with management that, more often than not, doesn't give a flying flip about YOU. So get the raises and immediately start stuffing that money away for the day when your number comes up.

 

[Joe Williams]

Watching what owners have done so far, citing circulation drops, the loss of ad revenue and the recession overall, can anyone expect them to be anything but ruthless in union contract talks? What sort of stomach would your average journalist have at the moment for a strike?

In my experience, journalists as a collective are pretty gutless when it comes to contract negotiations. Too many view their jobs as some priestly service to fellow man instead of, well, a job, and publishers take advantage of that every time they get a chance.

Agreed. Another group, too many again, truly believe that they are lucky to be doing this stuff for a living at whatever wage is thrown their way and they have no confidence in their ability to do something else. For some, of course, that certainly is true. But too few give themselves enough credit for having more value in other enterprises -- where every chair isn't filled with someone who can write and otherwise communicate well -- than they do in a room filled with such folks.

Also, you are spot-on regarding the inability to stick together. Deskers' main issues aren't the same as beat writers' top gripes, which aren't the same as the photogs' primary beefs, and so on. Management surgically divides and conquers.

Wonder what the Guild is going to look like 10 years from now.

 

[BTExpress]

What newspapers/newspaper companies are actually losing money? They just make a little less than they used to. Big difference.

NY Post loses about $40 million a year.

Others lose money, too, and still others are making a small profit.

This "they were making 20 percent and now they are making 18 percent" thinking has got to stop, because it's nonsense. Some papers are still doing well. Many are not. NONE have any positive economic trends (and face it, economic decisions are made with a view toward the future).

Does that mean newspapers are correct to think that they can cut, cut and cut in an effort to stop the bleeding? No, but the opposite is unsustainable, too. They are doing what you would do if you suddenly saw your paycheck dwindle. You would eat out less, drive a smaller car, fire the guy who maintains your lawn, subscribe to fewer satellite channels. Every one of those decisions hurts somebody, but you would make them if your revenues were dropping.

Have any of you really looked at the quarterly numbers that keep coming out?

"Revenues down 12 percent . . . circulation down 8 percent . . . McClatchy stock loses 85% of value" . . .

Every quarter we hear news like that. And you add it up, quarter after quarter, year after year, and it amounts to a much more serious situation than "profit margin dropping from 20 percent to 18 percent."

That is not a popular way of thinking on this board . . . but somebody had to say it.

 

[cranberry]

What newspapers/newspaper companies are actually losing money? They just make a little less than they used to. Big difference.

NY Post loses about $40 million a year.

Yes Rupert Murdoch is suffering so much that he almost couldn't cut a check out of petty cash to buy the Wall St. Journal.

 

[BTExpress]

Yes Ruper Murdoch is suffering so much that he almost couldn't cut a check out of petty cash to buy the Wall St. Journal.

The paper is losing money. A person asked a question, and I answered it.

That the person who owns it has more money than he knows what to do with thanks to other ventures is of no relevance. Yes, it would be nice if companies were not beholden to the whims of Wall Street. But soaring stock prices helped fuel the aggressive hiring and travel and growing space that many newspapers (mine included) enjoyed in the 1990s. It's only natural that crashing stock prices would have the opposite effect. Guess the entire industry should have gone private in 1999.

In fact, rag that it is, at least the 2008 NY Post is not a shell of its 1999 version, like many other newspapers (mine included).

 

[cranberry]

Yes Ruper Murdoch is suffering so much that he almost couldn't cut a check out of petty cash to buy the Wall St. Journal.

The paper is losing money. A person asked a question, and I answered it.

That the person who owns it has more money than he knows what to do with thanks to other ventures is of no relevance. Yes, it would be nice if companies were not beholden to the whims of Wall Street. But soaring stock prices helped fuel the aggressive hiring and travel and growing space that many newspapers (mine included) enjoyed in the 1990s. It's only natural that crashing stock prices would have the opposite effect. Guess the entire industry should have gone private in 1999.

In fact, rag that it is, at least the 2008 NY Post is not a shell of its 1999 version, like many other newspapers (mine included).

Rupert sells the Post for a quarter. The company is more interested in a circulation battle in which it's trying to run the NYDN of business. By the way, the NY Post also sucked in 1999 and 1989.

And of course one newspaper's performance is relevant to other publications within a chain. They're not run as stand-alone entities. Murdoch's enterprises, including huge Internet investments, are run with a top-down strategy. If that strategy calls for the Post to be a loss leader (for whatever purposes), that's OK with me. But please don't cite the NY Post as an example of our financially ailing industry and the need for cutbacks.

And how come nobody else got the message about the boom years of growth, hiring and salary increases during the 1990s?

 

[BTExpress]

And how come nobody else got the message about the boom years of growth, hiring and salary increases during the 1990s?

I guess "nobody else" worked at my paper . . . which, despite its mid-major status (only the nation's 37th largest in terms of circulation) was still . . .

A place that had a sports department of almost 50 people.
A place that went to Russia to cover the Goodwill Games.
A place that once had a Sunday section of 180 columns (the equivalent of 30 open broadsheet pages) and whose daily editorial space was rivaled only by The Dallas Morning News.
A place that regularly sent two people to the Olympics.
A place that sent someone to cover the America's Cup . . . in bleeping Australia.
A place that once had a 2:15 a.m. deadline for its main run.
A place where the sports editor could go $10,000 over the travel budget for a month and there by zero repercussions.
A place that saw its stock split every five years and doled out 21 percent of employees' salaries to each person's ESOP in one particularly fruitful year.

 

[cranberry]

And how come nobody else got the message about the boom years of growth, hiring and salary increases during the 1990s?

I guess "nobody else" worked at my paper . . . which, despite being only the nation's 37th largest in terms of circulation, was still . . .

A place that had a sports department of almost 50 people.
A place that went to Russia to cover the Goodwill Games.
A place that once had a Sunday section of 180 columns (the equivalent of 30 open broadsheet pages) and whose daily editorial space was rivaled only by The Dallas Morning News.
A place that regularly sent two people to the Olympics.
A place that sent someone to cover the America's Cup . . . in bleeping Australia.
A place that once had a 2:15 a.m. deadline for its main run.
A place where the sports editor could go $10,000 over the travel budget for a month and there by zero repercussions.
A place that saw its stock split every five years and doled out 21 percent of employees' salaries to each person's ESOP in one particularly fruitful year.

I don't doubt your personal experience.

There were exceptions like the LA Times-Mirror chain, which was tremendously generous with its employees during that time period but unfortunately looked upon as a bloated takeover target in publishing circles. Hello Tribune Co., party over.

Regardless or where you worked, most newspaper chains were already well into profit-increasing, shareholder appeasement mode by the late '80s.

 

[Mizzougrad96]

My rag (I mean paper) sent 20 people to the SLC games a few years back...

Now the pro beat writers are being asked which road trips we can skip...

 

[Baron Scicluna]

What newspapers/newspaper companies are actually losing money? They just make a little less than they used to. Big difference.

NY Post loses about $40 million a year.

Others lose money, too, and still others are making a small profit.

This "they were making 20 percent and now they are making 18 percent" thinking has got to stop, because it's nonsense. Some papers are still doing well. Many are not. NONE have any positive economic trends (and face it, economic decisions are made with a view toward the future).

Does that mean newspapers are correct to think that they can cut, cut and cut in an effort to stop the bleeding? No, but the opposite is unsustainable, too. They are doing what you would do if you suddenly saw your paycheck dwindle. You would eat out less, drive a smaller car, fire the guy who maintains your lawn, subscribe to fewer satellite channels. Every one of those decisions hurts somebody, but you would make them if your revenues were dropping.

Have any of you really looked at the quarterly numbers that keep coming out?

"Revenues down 12 percent . . . circulation down 8 percent . . . McClatchy stock loses 85% of value" . . .

Every quarter we hear news like that. And you add it up, quarter after quarter, year after year, and it amounts to a much more serious situation than "profit margin dropping from 20 percent to 18 percent."

That is not a popular way of thinking on this board . . . but somebody had to say it.

Problem is, newspapers have ALWAYS cried poverty, even when they were making the high profit margins. They would cry poverty when they would pay journalists measly salaries, cutting newshole and travel budgets. Rather than invest some of their profits back into the business for future growth and to guard against future problems, they just kept taking their big profits and demanding more.

I agree that the money losses are becoming a serious problem. The thing is, it's hard to be sympathetic when newspapers squandered their chances for long-term growth, instead settling for the short-term gain.

 

[BTExpress]

Rather than invest some of their profits back into the business for future growth and to guard against future problems, they just kept taking their big profits and demanding more.

Pratically every newspaper invested millions in pagination systems and/or new presses and/or upgraded computer systems a decade ago. If that's not investing profits back into the business for future growth, then somebody better explain to me what the concept means. And was anyone shedding any tears for all the composing room people laid off in the late-90s?

I agree that the money losses are becoming a serious problem. The thing is, it's hard to be sympathetic when newspapers squandered their chances for long-term growth, instead settling for the short-term gain.

Wall Street gave them little choice. In hindsight, all newspapers should have gone private in 1999. But had my paper concentrated on "long-term growth" in the mid-90s . . . at the expense of its stock price and ESOP disbursements . . . there would have been no guarantee of success, and we would have been screaming because of a flat stock price during the booming 90s and retirement accounts that showed little growth.