'Bakersfield Californian' Expands In-sourcing to Pressroom

By: Meg Campbell The Bakersfield Californian is handing over its printing operations to an outside contractor beginning in March. The contractor, Brad Moseley Inc. of Reno, Nevada, has been handling the Californian's post-press operations since 2004.

The hand-off will result in the elimination of 34 jobs at the newspaper's Harrell-Fritts Publishing Center. In addition to press operators, the change will affect delivery, shipping and receiving, building maintenance and janitorial staff.

The family-owned Californian and its sister weekly, The Tehachapi News, will still be printed on the publishing center's 20-year-old doublewide TKS press, and processed with the company's Ferag equipment. But employees doing the work will be working for BMI, which will lease the Californian's equipment and charge the paper for its services.

The Californian has a weekday circulation of 59,035 and Sunday circulation of 70,015.

BMI is hiring to fill vacant positions at the publishing center, and the Californian has told fired employees that they can apply for those positions through BMI. "Some of the people ... currently employed will be maintained, and we are bringing in others," says BMI President Brad Moseley.

The decision to bring in an outside contractor to handle production work is something of a "hybrid model," says Californian President Richard Beene. "We are kind of isolated geographically. We're not in an area where someone else is setting up a separate press," he says, referring to recent news about Transcontinental's plan to build a new facility to print the San Francisco Chronicle.

Beene has emphasized that the decision is not financial, but rather one of focus. "I don't want management dealing with the press. I want them worrying about the things that will secure our future," he says, such as news content, online editions, sales, market and data research. "We're trying to build a culture that's agnostic in how we deliver the information," he explains.

"Our business model is to be a provider for 'rightsourcing,'" says Moseley, explaining that while he concentrates on recruiting talent for the facility, which is not always available locally, the newspaper can focus on its core business.

Moseley had been in sales at Ferag when he began the outsourcing relationship with the Californian. "I'd like to say this was my model, but Ferag was actually selling this service, and then they decided it was not their core business," he says. "We reached an agreement that I would take over that part of the contract, and Ferag continued to provide the equipment." The Californian is currently Moseley's only customer.

Since signing the agreement to take over press operations, Moseley has promoted one of his employees to senior plant manager, and has hired Don Kay as director of press operations. Kaye recently left his position as operations vice president at MediaNews in San Bernadino.

One possible snag in the plans is resistance from the Graphic Communications Conference of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, Local 404M, which represents 20 of the 34 affected workers.

We have a contract with a year and a half left on it that says we have jurisdiction in the building," says local President Douglas Brown. "I don't see how [the paper] could lease the building without considering our contract." The union's lawyer is reviewing the contract and the union will likely file grievances and labor charges with the labor board, Brown says.

"Our legal advisors tell us that this is something that we can do. I don't want to get into it much more than that," responds Californian president Beene.