Philly Guild Strike Could Be Three Days Away

By: Joe Strupp More than 600 Newspaper Guild members at the Philadelphia Inquirer and Philadelphia Daily News signed up for strike benefits over the weekend, according to guild spokesman Stu Bykofsky, who said the union is also scheduling picket assignments for a strike that could occur as soon as midnight Thursday.

"We are preparing to go on strike as if we were going to go on strike because we cannot wait until Thursday," he told E&P. "We have to be ready to go."

Thursday marks the expiration of the guild's latest contract extension, the second such extension since the four-year guild agreement ended Aug. 31. The contract that covers more than 900 employees at both papers was first extended to Oct. 31, then to Nov. 30.

Bykofsky said union leaders do not want another extension and expect to either sign a new agreement or walk out at the end of the day Thursday. "Right now, it feels like if we don't have a contract, we will have a strike Thursday night," Bykofsky said. "But it is not unavoidable. There is no appetite here for a lengthy extension."

Publisher Brian Tierney, whose Philadelphia Media Holdings purchased the newspapers from The McClatchy Company last summer, could not immediately be reached for comment Monday.

Jay Devine, a spokesman for the newspapers' owners, said "we are continuing to negotiate this week and are working as hard as we possibly can to reach a settlement before the deadline." He declined to comment on the possibility of a strike.

Bykofsky said the guild would seek to strike instead of allowing another contract extension so it could take advantage of the upcoming holiday advertising season to pressure management for a new agreement. "There is a tremendous amount of advertising out there for the publisher and the publisher wants to keep publishing," he said of the holiday season. "If we get pushed through December [with another extension] the union's leverage would largely evaporate."

The guild is the largest of the newspapers' 10 unions, each of which face contract expirations on Thursday. Bykofsky said the guild, which has been negotiating through a mediator since last month, voted to authorize a strike on Oct. 26.

The major disagreements at this point have been over management's request to cap the union pension, diminish the power of seniority in job security, and require five days of unpaid time off before sick pay kicks in.

"We have not gotten to the issue of wages yet," said Bykofsky. "We want to help the company survive, the company is not making as much money as the new owners thought it was going to make. But it is still profitable."

The strike talk comes just weeks after Tierney announced plans to cut as many as 150 editorial jobs. Those would come a year after some 85 jobs were lost through a buyout in 2005.

"Everybody seems to be working toward trying to get an agreement, but we haven't reached agreement on the most important issues," said Henry Holcomb, president of the Newspaper Guild of Greater Philadelphia. "We are working hard and I think they are doing the same."

Holcomb and Bykofsky showed some optimism as talks with the mediator continued over the weekend. They said the federal mediator is set to meet with management today and tomorrow, but no direct talks are scheduled between the guild and management negotiators.

"Information is being exchanged so it is not like nothing is happening," Bykofsky said. "If both sides really want to, it can be done."

But Bykofsky said the union is closer to a strike than it has been since the contract's first expiration occurred. He said the union has already planned picket lines at three locations, including the papers' main Philadelphia building, a printing plant in suburban Conshohocken, Pa., and the Inquirer's Cherry Hill, N.J. bureau.

The papers' last strike was a 46-day job action in 1985, Bykofsky said. He said about one-third of the current guild membership was involved in that walkout.