Zuckerman Takes the Helm p.

By: George Garneau

New N.Y Daily News owner will try to rebuild despite the threat of a boycott following massive Guild staff cuts sp.

DESPITE THE THREAT of a Newspaper Guild boycott, Mortimer Zuckerman took possession of the bankrupt New York Daily News Jan. 9 in a $36 million deal.
In so doing he started a war with the paper's largest union, the New York Newspaper Guild Local 3, by summarily terminating about 185 workers, half of them from the newsroom, irrespective of seniority.
The Guild represented 450 white-collar employees in news, advertising and business departments and was the only one of 10 unions without a contract.
The Guild pledged to organize a reader and advertiser boycott and hopes to cut the paper's 800,000 daily circulation by 100,000. It is also targeting Zuckerman's entire corporate portfolio, which includes U.S. News & World Report and Atlantic Monthly and extensive real estate holdings.
The acquisition has shattered the solidarity that cemented the city's newspaper unions during a five-month 1990-91 strike against the Tribune Co.
The Guild's 24-member executive committee voted to withdraw from the Allied Printing Trades Council, the umbrella group that has represented newspaper unions for 140 years. The Guild responded to criticism by George McDonald, president of Allied and of the mailers union, who said the boycott was "counterproductive and could jeopardize" the 1,535 jobs preserved Zuckerman.
Except for the Guild, all of the Daily News unions have signed contracts with no-strike provisions and, in some cases, signing bonuses. Even the printers union, which Allied expelled for working during the strike in accordance with its lifetime job guarantees, signed a contract after a bankruptcy judge voided the guarantees.
At a rally in front of the Daily News Building, Guild leaders expressed anger that the drivers union had abandoned the Guild, even though the Guild walked out in 1990 to support the strike begun by the drivers union.
The Guild has hired labor organizer Ray Rogers to mount a "corporate" campaign against all of Zuckerman's business interests. Rogers has waged campaigns against such employers as Hormel and J.P. Stevens.
Zuckerman is the third owner in as many years. The Tribune Co., which founded the paper in 1919, said it lost over $100 million in a decade before it paid British publisher Robert Maxwell to take it during the strike in March 1991. However, Maxwell drowned off his yacht in November 1991 and the paper went to bankruptcy court.
"The Chicago Tribune milked the paper. Robert Maxwell raped the paper. We're investing in the paper," Zuckerman was quoted as saying in Newsday. "I think when people appreciate how committed we are to the editorial product, we'll all be able to work together and make it happen without lingering on the difficult but necessary decisons of the past."
Under Zuckerman, Jim Willse, the editor who took on the publisher's title during the turmoil of the last year, has reverted to editor until a successor is hired. Zuckerman calls himself chairman and co-publisher, and Fred Drasner, president of U.S. News, is CEO and co-publisher of the Daily News.
Zuckerman raided his competition to hire Richard Esposito as his metropolitan editor from New York Newsday, where he was city editor, and Ira Ellenthal moves over from the Atlantic to become vice president and associate publisher of the Daily News, where he takes over advertising, marketing and promotion.
In a Page Two letter to readers Jan. 10, Zuckerman called the paper "a public trust" and said that, as the first "hometown owners" since the Chicago-based Tribune Co. founded it 73 years ago, he and Drasner wanted the Daily News to be "an ally of everyone who is struggling to make it?or those who are just plain struggling" in New York.
His Daily News will be "tough, sassy, full of outrage at injustice and street- smart," he promised, and will include new features and columnists. He did not apologize about the Guild, saying every union at the paper lost jobs "in order for us to save the paper and the jobs of its remaining 1,535 employees."

Busted union?

In what employees described as a "bloodbath," more than one-third of the Guild was fired. They qualify for 2.5 weeks' severance pay per year of service.
Photographer Alan Aronson lost his job after 40 years. Movie critics Kathleen Carroll and Kay Gardella were fired, as were news reporters Owen Moritz and Rob Polner.
Don Singleton, 28-year veteran reporter who was invited to stay on, called it "the worst day of my professional career."
Others were offered jobs but with pay cuts up to $400 a week.
In an informal meeting with angry newsroom staffers, Zuckerman said he planned to replace as many as 100 of those fired.
Guild workers expressed bitterness about the impersonal way the firings were handled. After being evaluated by executives, they were handed envelopes informing them whether they were fired or offered jobs with Zuckerman.
David Hardy, an African-American who was fired after 20 years and who several years ago successfully sued the News for discrimination, said he planned to sue Zuckerman.
The National Association of Black Journalists said it was "outraged by the disproportionate layoffs of African-American and other journalists of color."
NABJ president Sidmel Estes-Sumpter said that all 10 black male journalists at the News were fired, as were two of six black females.
The News has said that 15 out of 42 African-Americans were fired.
Drasner could not be reached for a response.