MediaNews Group Bay Area Papers to Vote on Unionization

By: Joe Strupp Less than two weeks after MediaNews Group employees at nine newspapers outside San Francisco petitioned to unionize, a union vote date has been set.

Union-eligible employees at the Bay Area News Group-East Bay (BANG-EB), which includes nine MediaNews Group dailies in Alameda and Contra Costa counties, will vote on June 13 whether or not to be represented by a bargaining unit, according to a memo from John Armstrong, the group's publisher.

"Based on an oral agreement between representatives of the company and the guild, the National Labor Relations Board will schedule a secret ballot election on Friday, June 13th, on the union's petition to become the exclusive bargaining agent for pay, benefits and working conditions for non-supervisory news employees of Bay Area News Group-East Bay," the memo read in part.

Added Armstrong: "Yes, you read correctly: Friday the 13th."

The union vote comes more than nine months after MediaNews Group withdrew recognition of the Newspaper Guild unit at its Alameda Newspaper Group outside San Francisco. Employees there and at five sister newspapers petitioned the National Labor Relations Board May 2 for a new union vote.

Sara Steffens, a reporter with the Contra Costa Times in Walnut Creek, Calif., said at the time more than half of the 250 newsroom employees at the BANG-EB papers signed guild authorization cards stating they wish to have guild representation. NLRB rules require that 30% of eligible union employees sign such cards before a vote can be held.

Steffens said those signing guild cards seek representation by the Northern California Media Workers Guild, a local of The Newspaper Guild-Communications Workers of America. A separate guild local already represents MediaNews employees at the nearby San Jose Mercury News.

MediaNews in August withdrew recognition of the former Alameda Newspaper Guild, which represented some 130 staffers at the six-paper ANG, including the Oakland Tribune.

The union recognition change followed MediaNews' consolidation of ANG's editorial functions with its neighboring five-paper Contra Costa Newspapers, led by the Contra Costa Times of Walnut Creek.

The consolidation of editorial operations from the two groups came one year after MediaNews purchased the Contra Costa papers from McClatchy as part of its takeover of 31 daily and community papers in the area, which also included the Mercury News.

Company officials said at the time that the union withdraw was proper because the consolidated editorial unit now includes fewer than 50% guild members. Since the ANG unit, which had been under a guild contract since 1998, had only 130 staffers and the Contra Costa staff, which was union-free, included about 170, the guild unit could be removed because it did not represent a majority of the combined workers.

?The union has to represent a majority of a bargaining unit,? MediaNews general counsel Marshall Anstandig said at the time. ?The issue that gets presented in a consolidated group is that it impacts representation rights."

ANG had been represented by the guild since signing its first contract in 1998, but had been seeking a contract since workers voted in the guild in 1987.