'Seattle P-I' Seeks NLRB Help In Online Reporter Dispute

By: Joe Strupp The Seattle Post-Intelligencer is asking the National Labor Relations Board to settle a dispute with the Pacific Northwest Newspaper Guild over a newly created position of online reporter. Guild members want the new job to be part of the union's covered positions, the paper reported.

The local Guild is suing the P-I and its owner, The Hearst Corp., in federal court alleging it has violated a collective bargaining agreement, the P-I reported. The union represents reporters, photographers, copy editors and artists, but not the online reporter, which is part of the paper's New Media Department.

"We have asked the NLRB to make it clear that employees in the New Media Department are excluded from the Guild's certified bargaining unit," P-I Associate Publisher Kenneth Bunting said in an e-mail sent to P-I employees.

"It is a request that the federal agency charged with the task of protecting employees' rights in matters of union representation determine if employees in the New Media Department can be forced into the Guild against their will and against the understanding of the 1998 agreement."

Bunting said the petition to the NLRB was made last week. The paper reports a hearing is set for Oct. 24.

"The Guild has said that in March 2006, it unilaterally ended the 1998 New Media Agreement, which discusses what sorts of online work Guild members may be assigned to do and exempts online workers from union membership," the paper reported.

Liz Brown, the Guild's administrative officer, told the P-I that "the union sued the paper because the P-I refused to follow an arbitration process regarding the dispute over the online reporting position. "The P-I wants to cast this as we are suing over this online reporter position," Brown said. "We are suing the P-I because it refuses to comply with a contract it signed with us."

Brown also said its members do the same work as an online reporter.
"The people we represent, the reporters, are blogging, writing stories online and breaking news online. They are doing the same duties that this new online reporter position is doing," Brown said.