By: Cheryl Wittenauer, Associated Press Writer (AP) Union members have authorized the St. Louis Newspaper Guild to take action against the
St. Louis Post-Dispatch's owner if a year of contract negotiations ends in an impasse.
Guild members approved possible action against Pulitzer Inc. Sunday by an overwhelming vote of 353 to 15. Job actions could include byline strikes, work stoppages, and circulation and advertising boycotts.
"The voice here is very clear," Guild President and
Post-Dispatch reporter Tim O'Neil said. "This membership is united. We want a good and fair contract, and we want to preserve our union the way it is."
The last union contract expired Jan. 9, and employees in editorial, advertising, classified, accounting and circulation departments have been working under a contract extension clause.
The two sides have had 25 bargaining sessions in the interim. Chief among the sticking points is over whether the
Post-Dispatch should remain a closed union shop.
The Guild says management wants to end mandatory union membership and establish a so-called open shop wherein the union would still have to represent nonunion, non-dues-paying employees. O'Neil called the open shop a strategy to "cripple" a union.
Post-Dispatch spokesman Matt Davis said the prospect of a bargaining impasse is remote, and that
Post-Dispatch management is focusing its energies on negotiations, which resume Monday. "There are a lot of issues still on the table," he said.
The Guild has never gone on strike against the
Post-Dispatch, but it did launch a 99-day strike against the old
St. Louis Globe-Democrat in 1955. From November 1978 to January 1979, Guild members honored a pressmen's strike and did not cross the picket line.
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