Newspapers Sending Replacements to Youngstown in 'Vindicator' Strike

By: Mark Fitzgerald Newspapers from as far away as Portland, Ore., and Pittsfield, Mass., are recruiting reporters, copy editors, paginators, and other newsroom employees to work in Youngstown, Ohio, during the Newspaper Guild strike against the Vindicator, E&P has learned.

So far, only two or three temporary replacements have shown up in the newsroom, according to the Guild Local 11 Vice President Debora R. Shaulis Flora.

But more may be on the way. An employee of The Berkshire Eagle, who demanded anonymity, said the Pittsfield, Mass., paper will be sending two newsroom workers. "It's voluntary," he said, then suggested that this was not exactly true with one of the employees.

MediaNews Group, which owns the Eagle, has discussed letting employees volunteer for a stint at the Vindicator, said Anthony F. Tierno, senior vice president of operations. "I don't know the specifics about who's going," he said. "We've done it [for other papers] from time to time. If they need help, we'll help them."

According to the Eagle worker who talked with E&P, the paper offered to continue to pay any volunteers. According to the employee, volunteers would work seven days a week on 12-hour shifts at the Vindicator. They would be paid $20 an hour for the first eight hours, and $30 an hour for the final four hours. They would receive a $75 per diem payment plus hotel expenses.

Vindicator General Manager Mark Brown said the replacements are temporary. "There are no plans for permanent replacements," he said. "We're trying to maintain the operations and the vitality of the business so that there is a business for [the strikers] to return to."

Advance Newspapers is also making its employees available, according to a report in The Business Journal, a Youngstown weekly. Quoting an e-mail she said was "obtained by a staff representative for" the Guild, Andrea Wood wrote that Peter Bhatia, executive editor of the Oregonian, said the Vindicator was "looking for half a dozen reporters and copy editors."

"Our parent company is helping the management in Youngstown continue to publish by supplying workers from our sister paper in New Orleans," the e-mail reads, according to the Business Journal article. "Volunteers would continue to receive their Oregonian salaries and benefits as well as being paid by Youngstown. Transportation, etc., would be covered. I understand some may be uncomfortable with this sort of situation or with crossing a picket line, as I assume they would have to do. There is no pressure for anyone to go. It is completely voluntary."

About 179 newsroom employees, circulation managers and delivery drivers walked off their jobs Nov. 16 when their two-year contract with the family-owned Vindicator expired. Both sides said after a bargaining session Monday that they remain far apart on economic issues. The paper says it has operated in the red for the past seven years, and that to accept the union proposals would ruin any prospect of a return to profitability.

Guild Vice President Shaulis Flora said the pay offers for replacement workers belie the paper's contention at the bargaining table that it cannot afford the Guild proposal.

"They're making $20 an hour. Well, even if we got the raise that we've [put] on the table now, our reporters still would not be making $20 an hour," she said. "It always amazes me that this company that says it operates in the red can shell out this kind of cash. [Replacements are] not only getting all this salary, but they're getting per diems and expenses."

Brown said the pay level only reflects what the paper is asking replacements to do. "We're paying what we have to pay to get people in here to do the work," he said. "People are obviously not thrilled to be coming in and doing strike work. But the other alternative is you just shut down and you have no company to come back to. They're kind of talking out of both sides of their mouths."

The Vindicator has gotten calls, "if anything, too many calls," from local people willing to work, Brown said. "In terms of the more skilled positions, people find out in the business that you've got a problem, through some of the trade organizations and things."

That's how MediaNews got involved, Tierno indicated. "We're all part of that association in Oklahoma," he said. He said he could not recall its name.

He may have been referring to Southern Production Program Inc., which operates the Newspaper Production and Research Center in Oklahoma City. Its training programs have been used to prepare management-side employees to operate production equipment in the event of a labor dispute. The center's executive director, Frank Bourlon, was gone for the day, his office reported Wednesday evening, and he did not immediately respond to a message left on his cell phone.