20-Year-Old 'Dayton Daily News' Guild Seeks First Contract

By: Joe Strupp If you think your union has been waiting a long time for a contract, visit the Dayton Daily News. Newspaper Guild members there, who voted in the union in 1986, have yet to get their first contract despite more than 20 years of trying.

To the paper's credit, guild officials admit they had not aggressively pursued a new contract because management had generally treated the rank and file well during the past two decades, offering merit raises and generally adhering to provisions in a previous agreement forged under an in-house union.

"We've had a good working relationship with the middle managers in which we had resolved all of our grievances without going to arbitration," said Rob Modic, who has served as president of the Dayton Newspaper Guild since it formed in 1986. "And the push by the members of the union [for a contract] tended to dissipate as they kept getting merit raises."

But in recent years, union leaders said the non-contract arrangement had grown sour as disputes over employee discipline had arisen. Lou Grieco, a Guild vice president, said the tipping point occurred about two year ago when two guild members were fired and denied arbitration. "Their position was we did not have arbitration [rights]," Grieco said about the Daily News' response. "That lent some urgency to it."

Brett Thurman, general counsel for Cox Ohio Publishing, a division of Cox Newspapers, which owns the Daily News, would not comment on the specific cases, but said arbitration does not exist without a contract. "The standard rule is that, in between contracts, there is no obligation to arbitrate," Thurman told E&P.

Although the two workers settled their dispute with the paper, Grieco said the incident sparked a new effort to negotiate a contract. On Friday, guild leaders formally requested to begin negotiations in a letter to Thurman.

"The company has been receptive," Grieco said. "Brett said he would be happy to negotiate." Thurman, who said the paper had 12 other unions, welcomed the opportunity to bargain. "We're pleased to work with any of our unions," he said. Publisher Douglas Franklin could immediately be reached for comment.

Grieco said the union had been campaigning for a new contract within the newsroom in recent months, educating workers and organizing for a contract push. That effort culminated in a protest on Sept. 12, the 20th anniversary of the initial guild vote, in which union members wore black to work.

Beginning this week, the union plans to launch an external campaign to educate the public about the contract request, Grieco said. "We are going to be talking to members of the community," he said, adding that serious picketing or anti-management messages are not yet likely to be included. "We want to talk. We don't want to throw insults if we don't have to," he said.

The unusual nature of the Dayton guild's arrangement dates back to 1986 when two important votes were held. First, newsroom employees, then represented by the independent Newspaper Employees Association of Dayton, voted to approve a new three-year contract. Soon after, the newsroom voted to switch affiliation, voting in the guild as its representative.

"By the mid-80s, there were two [labor] factions and a reform group decided to push for the guild," Grieco explained. "They pushed the [guild] vote through and the [NEAD] contract was approved the same day."

When the NEAD contract ended in 1989, guild leaders sought to negotiate a new agreement under the guild, but management efforts to avoid the contract were successful. Grieco said management offers of raises and other benefits convinced guild members they did not need a new contract. He said the clincher was a letter signed by Franklin, then the paper's business manager, agreeing to abide by the arbitration provision of the previous contract until a new contract was reached or an impasse declared.

Things got heated in 1991, Grieco recalls, when the membership actually voted to strike, setting a strike date, but backing down before it was reached. "They tried to keep things cool," Grieco said of the paper's management, which generally abided by most elements of the NEAD agreement. "There was a real d?tente, they didn't want to go back to the table." Thurman agreed, describing the union-management relationship as "cooperative."

The union managed to hold about 100 bargaining sessions between 1989 and 1996, Modic said, but no agreement was ever forged. Grieco said merit raises continued, averaging about 3% per year.

"We really haven't negotiated since 1996," Grieco said. "We have lived under a mutual d?tente." But union leaders said the recent arbitration dispute, and an ongoing buyout offer announced several weeks ago, make a new deal necessary. No formal wage or benefit requests have been put forth by the union, but Grieco stressed that one of the union demands would be inclusion of some 20 to 30 part-time workers.

"I think it is very important," Grieco said about the new contract campaign, which would affect 120 guild members at the Daily News. "I feel like it is time."