'Honolulu Advertiser' Enters Mediation With Union

By: Joe Strupp The bitter contract battle at the Honolulu Advertiser, which has included a successful strike vote and staff cutbacks in online video and blogging, reached some sign of improvement with management agreeing to enter mediation with the union, according to the Honolulu Star-Bulletin.

The Star-Bulletin reported Thursday that Advertiser management agreed to enter mediation with the union that represents its 600-plus employees.

Lee Webber, Advertiser president and publisher, told workers in a May 21 letter that mediation is a "reasonable next step" and that the company has offered "a fair benefit and wage package," the Star-Bulletin reported.

"We already pay among the highest wages and benefits by job category of almost any Hawaii employer and will continue to do so," he said, a according to the paper. "But we also have a responsibility to protect the long-term health of the newspaper in light of the uncertainties of our state and national economies - particularly the challenges faced by the newspaper industry."

Hawaii Newspaper and Printing Trades Council, which represents six unions negotiating with the Advertiser's parent company, Gannett Co. Inc., told the Star-Bulletin the company had previously rejected proposals for mediation since January and is not losing money, though its latest offer includes a three-year wage freeze and doubles worker medical premiums.

"The latest plan is worse than the company's final 'take-it-or-leave' proposal that employees overwhelmingly rejected in January," Wayne Cahill, spokesman for the unions, told the paper. "The core issues are the same and the company's response has been to give a new proposal each time that provides less money and fewer benefits."

The latest Gannett proposal issued on Monday calls for a three-year contract with three, one-percent bonuses, no wage increases and requires that workers continue to pay 10 percent of their medical premiums this year, 15 percent in 2009 and 20 percent in 2010, the union told the Star-Bulletin.

The parties are working with Ken Kawamoto of the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service. Dates for further negotiations haven't yet been set. Cahill said Advertiser staff has stopped producing video for the Web and are writing fewer blogs during the impasse, Cahill said.

Union members, who have been working under contract extensions since June 9, overwhelmingly voted to authorize a strike in February, the Star-Bulletin reported.

"Obviously we want to do everything we can do to get a settlement without a strike," Cahill said. "We're just as much in danger of a strike now as we were before mediation."