At the 2012 North American Newspaper
Conference, I had the opportunity to present a report I wrote on the
effect of digital advertising revenues for newspaper companies and what
this means for newspaper unions. This post is a summation of that
report. The full report can be viewed here:
http://www.scribd.com/doc/96526579/Digital-Will-Not-Save-Newspapers
Introduction
Despite an initial slow decline in daily newspaper
circulation beginning in 1984, by 1990, daily circulation begins to fall more
rapidly. Sunday circulation, however,
continues to grow until it peaks in 1994 at 62.6 million and starts its slow
decline. For the next ten years, both Sunday and Daily circulation continue a
steady decline until 2004 when both circulations go into free-fall.
In addition to the declining circulation, newspapers have
also faced a major erosion of their advertising revenue since 2000. As newspapers derive the majority of their
income from advertising, this lost revenue are devastating. In 2000 advertising accounted for 82% of
newspaper revenue. From 2000 to 2011,
print advertising fell by a whopping 57%.
Since they began measuring on-line advertising in 2003, the
Newspaper Association of America (NAA) reports that online advertising rose
nearly 275% from 2003 to 2011. Despite
this dramatic increase in on-line advertising, the total revenue dollars pale
in comparison to print advertising revenues.
While most newspapers have developed an Internet presence
with an impressive array of on-line media, they have not been able to generate
enough income from access fees, advertising, and services to make up for the
dramatic loss in print advertising. In
fact, a
recent study released by the
Pew Research Center's Project for Excellence in Journalism (PEJ) reported that newspapers took in
roughly $11 in print revenue for every $1 they attracted online.
While there has clearly been
significant decline in the industry, and media companies have seen their
profits hurt, there have been a few bankruptcies and, absent a couple of
notable exceptions, relatively few newspapers have gone out of business. In fact, the number of daily papers has only
seen a slight decline, and the number of Sunday newspaper has remained steady
and even increased slightly in 2009. The largest change in our industry has come in the form of printing
consolidation, which has had disastrous consequences for newspaper
employees. Over 98% of
newspaper plant closings in the United
States are a result of outsourcing or
consolidation.
As discussed earlier, print advertising has been the
lifeblood of newspapers’ and with digital revenue showing little promise to
change that any time soon newspapers are desperately searching for a number new
revenue streams. These new revenue
streams can be made up of a multitude of revenue makers in digital media, print
media, and related businesses including digital subscriptions, production
services, banner advertising, new print products, distribution services, print
in-sourcing, mobile text advertising, social networking, niche newspapers and
cross media advertising.
Many of these will present opportunities for pressmen and
other newspaper craft unions. For
example, two larger shops in Local 3, the
Boston Globe and the
Providence Journal have been adding numerous publications and experimenting with new and
innovative ways to produce printed products that offer new advertising
opportunities such as ads that pop-out of the top of the paper and ads that
fold over page one.
As more and more newspapers continue to
outsource their
printing operations, job losses will continue.
However, most of this work has, and will, continue to migrate to
unionized facilities. In some cases,
this migration of work has resulted in additional positions, but these few
additions do not keep pace with the jobs lost from outsourcing.
Despite the circulations declines, the printed newspaper, and
associated products such as comics and advertising supplements will continue to
exist, albeit in different form, for years to come. These printed products, however, will be ever
changing. Daily and Sunday newspapers
will evolve into smaller, user-friendly formats. The comics and other sections are being
developed to accommodate new and different advertising opportunities. Newspaper pressrooms will also be printing
niche products, with more color and new, creative design features requiring
complex printing operations.
As
David Weil said in his 1997 book,
Turning the Tide;
Strategic Planning for Labor Unions, “For labor unions in the industry, these
transformations provide challenges, but also new opportunities.”
Bargaining
In an article for
Industrial and Labor Relations
Review
entitled; Is Pattern Bargaining Dead? Author KJ Ready makes clear
that “Pattern bargaining as a process may, however differ from pattern
bargaining as an outcome.” This is
obviously true in the newspaper industry.
Pattern bargaining and coordinated bargaining have failed in
our industry. It is time to recognize
this and increase our leverage at the table by bringing more groups under one
collective bargaining agreement. Whether
it is through local merger, or other means, this must be done.
In today’s ever changing printing environment, and with the
Globe currently introducing many new products, in makes absolutely no sense to
squander this opportunity of a common expiration dates increased
constituencies, and less competition with multiple unions bargaining over the
same dollars. Drastic change such as
this is never easy. However, with most
newspaper employees represented by the
Teamsters and the
Communications Workers of America we should seek their assistance is this endeavor.
Organizing
In the printing industry, there are a number of
opportunities for internal organizing. It
is common in the industry to have only one or two departments in a printing
operation unionized. While this is less
common in the newspaper industry, it is more common in the commercial printing
business. Potential external targets are
many of the office stores that are now using digital printers to do work we
have done for years. These include
Staples, OfficeMax, and Kinko’s. As
Kinko’s is affiliated with FedEx, there could be some tie-in with the Teamsters
as they are at odds with FedEx.
Because we have seen a number of lay-offs, we have a number
of solid union members, including former stewards, who may be willing to work
as salts for organizing. Even with the
prospect using salts, however external organizing is difficult for smaller
unions. There is also the political concern over organizing within the local
with members seeing dollars expended with little or no results. We must overcome this fear and somehow find a
way to renew our efforts to mobilize and energize those within our current
bargaining units to reach out to their fellow unorganized employees.
As
Bill Fletcher puts it; “Although there are few definitive
answers, the experiences of locals struggling with the realities of juggling
organizing and representational responsibilities should guide the search for
sustainable conversion.”
Conclusion
Newspaper companies want to stay in business. Many are doing this by outsourcing their
printing and many are doing this by increasing their printing. The evidence is becoming clearer by the day
that if major newspapers wish to stay in business, with their own newsrooms and
original reporting, they cannot rely on digital revenue to support them. With their need to support printed products
and the revenue that comes from it, we can expect, new print products, print
in-sourcing, niche newspapers and new and innovative ways to produce printed
products that offer new advertising opportunities such as ads that pop-out of
the top of the paper and ads that fold over page one.
These will present real opportunities for pressmen and other
newspaper craft unions. In order to
benefit from this changing environment, newspaper craft unions, particularly
the Pressmen’s unions, need to ensure we are positioned to accept and execute
this new work. It required accepting
significant cultural change in the form of additional paid straight-time hours,
considerable work rule modifications, and additional training.
While these changes seemed difficult to accept in the short
term, the leverage gained by the elimination of competition, the addition of
multiple constituent publications, and an expanding skill set will pay
dividends in subsequent contract negotiations.
News of the New York Times’ decision to sell the Boston
Globe has stirred considerable angst among Globe employees. While this is completely understandable, if
there is one thing we have learned in this business it is that the only
constant is change. After all, when the
New York Times made the decision to close the Globe’s satellite production facility
in 2008, resulting in the loss of over 60 Pressmen we soldiered on. And then, when the New York Times extracted
millions of dollars in savings under the threat of closing the Globe, we
survived. Others in our great union have
not been so lucky.
