23-year UPI veteran fired for using internal wire p.

By: Debra Gersh

Sent messages seeking answers on future
of the financially troubled wire service
THE FIRING OF a United Press International 23-year veteran editor for using the internal message wire for an open letter to management led to a flurry of messages of support from fellow Unipressers around the country.
David Rosso, former Washington news editor, was fired Feb. 26 after sending an open letter to management on the internal system charging that staffers "are reading a lot of signs that spell disaster."
Among Rosso's charges were that stringers around the world have not been paid and are unwilling to file stories, vendors are not being paid, phone lines have been disconnected, equipment is not being supplied and, a situation Rosso feels strongly about, medical claims are going unpaid.
Rosso said there are approximately $24,000 in unpaid medical claims owed from heart surgery he underwent last October.
Although he said UPI has told him half of that has been paid, he said he was told by comprehensive benefits, a third party which administers the claims, that one check for $6,000 was sent to one hospital on March 2.
UPI executive editor/executive vice president Steve Geimann, however, said the $24,000 figure was "not correct" and that part of the bill is in question.
Geimann added that the issue is a private matter, and he would not comment further on the dollar amount.
Geimann said disciplinary action was taken against Rosso for violating the company's "often-stated, long-standing" policy against using the message wire for anything but company business ? transactions of information related to news or the status of a story, for example.
"That company message wire belongs to the company," Geimann said, noting that Rosso had been reprimanded in 1990 for a similar breach of policy.
In this case, Rosso had first been reprimanded on Thursday, Feb. 25, and then was fired the next day. Geimann said that was because the earlier reprimand did not come to light until after Rosso had been reprimanded on Thursday.
Rosso said his message in 1990 had been in response to massive layoffs and focused on one bureau that was unable to follow up on a story because it did not have the staff.
According to Rosso, he was told by then-executive editor Pieter Van Bennekom that his message was "gratuitous and unnecessarily harmful to the interests of UPI" and that Rosso owed an apology to his colleagues.
In his latest message, Rosso wrote in part, "We have been waiting for 'the plan' for a long time ? a very long time. It has been promised to us by many UPI administrations. We have given great chunks of our pay on the false promise of a brighter tomorrow, and tomorrow never seems to get here. We have given at the office and all we get in return is spin.
"I think it is time that somebody leveled with us," Rosso added. "Where do we stand now? What is our outlook?"
Over 30 Washington bureau staffers signed a statement supporting Rosso's message, as did a number of others from around the country, many of whom also sent messages of support.
Ironically, Rosso was known for his "good morning" messages on the internal wire, which reportedly were praised by Geimann in his weekly message to the staff July 19.
The Wire Service Guild, which has been in the midst of some rocky contract negotiations with UPI, also put out a message on the Rosso firing.
According to the WSG, Unipressers in Washington filed into Geimann's office on Feb. 26 and began questioning him about Rosso.
Among their questions were whether the other staffers who used the internal message wire to voice their support for Rosso would be similarly reprimanded or fired.
The Guild reported that Geimann did not respond, and when asked about it by E&P, he said he did not give the staffers an answer and would not give one to E&P.
Staffers, including members of the WSG, met with Geimann on March 2 to discuss the terms of Rosso's possible reinstatement.
Geimann ? who called the reopening of a personnel matter unprecedented ? said the company would be willing to consider reinstatement if Rosso "apologized and acknowledged what he did was wrong."
Rosso, however, told E&P he would not do so.
"I just couldn't do it," he said. "For me to say I'm sorry would negate what I said in my letter. It would look like I did not mean it, and I did. I don't think I did anything wrong."
Rosso characterized his firing as "totally unjustified" and said he is considering legal action.
"I do not regret what I did," he said. "I tweaked them. I made them consider the questions out loud."
Rosso, who said he stopped hiring stringers because he knew they were unlikely to get paid, charged UPI with "cold callousness" and said "people expect things and we get nothing in return."
Rosso said Unipressers have "been hearing 'Next week' for four or five years now. We've given our pay, we've given our work, we've given extra hours, and we get nothing but lies in return."
Geimann said, "Stringers have been paid." Then he added that some have not been paid but said how stringers are paid is a business decision. Some are paid right away, others at various intervals.
"We're still in business, that means bills are being paid," Geimann said, adding that all bills are not necessarily paid the moment they come in.
When asked if bills were being paid in a timely fashion, Geimann said he was not going to get into UPI's internal affairs.
Science writer Doug Levy, Guild representative in Washington, said there remained issues to resolve, and they would be pursued through a grievance procedure, but he declined to be more specific.