Los Angeles Times GCC/IBT Represented Pressroom Employees Ratify CBA 140 YES to 57 NO

Today's historic Pressroom Contract Ratification results came on the heels of another historic announcement in which it was reported that Tribune Corporation, today, filed for Bankruptcy Protection.

When it was first announced in 2006 that the Tribune Corporation was being forced to break up the company or sell it, there was no other choice than to seek whatever protections we could for our shops. Breaking up the company or selling it was not enough to instill fear as to our future and the uncertainty that goes along with it, Tribune in the same year sought to siphon another 200 million dollars from the L.A. Times Operation. It was quickly discovered that Tribune was spending almost that much for a baseball player for their beloved Cubbies . Tribune's executives and their greed has always meant only one thing, CUTS. The wounds that were caused by the closure of our Northridge shop had not yet healed over the fact that we lost another 47 brothers and sisters at that time. We could not sit idle while Tribune was going try to milk their Los Angeles "Cash Cow" again.

The events of 2006 were apparently enough to convince a hand full of individuals known to be opposed to Union Representation to approach Brother Dave Rascon and myself and asked us to launch another organizing drive. We were reluctant to risk everything once again, and to ask other brothers to do the same was not an easy decision to ask them to make, but fortunately for all of us, they had no reservations about taking those risks and our organizing committee was formed.

The Bankruptcy announcement today should be solid evidence that we did the right thing, at the right time. I am proud of everyone in our shops for ratifying our agreement today and want to say that since the day we won our election, we became part of the Teamster brotherhood and we need to embrace unity and build the solidarity necessary to strenghten our position no matter who owns us going forward.

We have a lot of work ahead, and I don't expect management to make it easy, so please be diligent in your performance and do not allow complacency to set in. Always follow all safety protocols and be conscious of your environment. Watch out for one another.

There are numerous people that should, and need to be thanked for their contribution. I will begin by thanking our brothers on the organizing committee starting with David Rascon, who has been fighting for us, and by my side from the day I met him, Dan Beruman, and his contribution during the organizing campaign, Gary Bunch, Richard Ontiveros, Jorge Ayala and Charlie Laird for their perseverance and efforts in organizing our Orange County shop, which historically was anti-union. Great job to all of you brothers for getting us to the table! Much respect and gratitude.

Our negotiation committee was always in total unity and it was my honor to sit at the table with our brothers that were elected to represent us in bargaining, David Rascon, Keith Denson, Chuck Reney, Lance Farrar, Charlie Laird, Kerry McCluskey and Mike Bassett, all of you showed me what true solidarity is and I know that all of you (with the exception of Mike and Kerry who are gone, but will never be forgotton)will continue to display the courage that I witnessed in negotiations and is needed to build a strong, unified local.

There was one individual that needs mention and that person is Victor Banuelos, Vic was always ready and willing to do whatever was necessary without hesitation and his contribution was beyond commendable. Thanks for the commitment Brother Vic, I wish everyone learns to go the extra mile as you always have.

Ed Padgett can be thanked for his blog and the avenue it provided in getting the message out and the forum to express one's opinions. Brother Berry Tillage I want to personally thank you for being my extended conscious and keeping me grounded firmly so that I could serve our bargaining unit with integrity and humility.

Sincere appreciation is not enough to thank our Union Officials beginning with GCC/IBT President/ Teamster Vice President, George Tedeschi, for having the faith in us to give us one more opportunity to finally get it right, we are all deeply indebted to you Sir. Secondly, GCC/IBT Secretary Treasurer, Robert Lacey, our thanks for devoting the resources necessary to achieve success, I know you went through quite a few pens signing checks for our campaigns.

Next, our International Representatives, beginning with Mike Huggins, I have the utmost respect for the work he does traversing this country to represent the working men and women in our trade, especially during these tough times. I will always be grateful for all that you have taught me during these negotiations, and look forward to having you represent other L.A. Times employees who may seek a CBA for their departments.
International Representative Sonny Shannon, who was originally assigned to our negotiations by President Tedeschi, was tenacious enough to beat throat cancer, and come on board midway through negotiations, a true pressman who will do anything for another pressman, Thanks for everything you've done for us at the table and everything you will be doing to help us get our local up and running successfully.

Lead Organizer Marty Keegan and I have known each other for almost ten years and he is the best at what he does, Marty knows how much he means to this bargaining unit, and visa versa, I've thanked you Marty, more times than I can remember for all that you have taught me over the years, apparently some of it did stick. This has been an amazing journey my long time brother, we've finally reached our destination. Finally, Organizer, Jorge (George) Perez, Muchas Gracias por todo hermano! Tu Saves!

During our Organizing drive, Attorney Ira (Buddy) Gottlieb filed several ULP's on the bargaining unit's behalf in which settlements were reached between the NLRB and the company that resulted in resolution to our charges. During the negotiations, Attorney's Adam Stern and Dave Meyers supplied the legal muscle we needed when things got rough. Thanks you gentlemen, I'm sure we will work together again in the future when things get rough again, which it most likely will.

Lest we forget the contribution and solidarity we received from our brothers and sisters on Long Island at NewsDay. You are no longer part of the Tribune family (lucky all of you) but every one of you will always remain part of the Los Angeles Times pressroom family. We can learn plenty from your Local 406's example and will strive for the unity that was bestowed upon our shop from yours. Thank you President Grabhorn for everything you and your Local has done for us, we are deeply grateful. Special thanks to Business Agent Mike Laspina and Chapel Chairman, Lou Nicosia for coming to Los Angeles during our organizing campaign to teach us what working under a union contract really means. We could sure use your help setting up our Local!

Our Thanks to President Doug Brown, the executive board and all of the members of Local 404 in Monrovia. Local 404 has for over a decade been there for our members when we needed them and our relationship with Local 404 will only serve to strengthen both of our locals and enable us to become a stronger voice for our trade and our members here on the west coast.

None of the people I just thanked would have been able to do what they've done for all of us here at the Los Angeles Times if it were not for ALL of the GCC/IBT Brothers and Sisters across the country, who through their dues, made the resources available for us to complete our mission.There are no words that can be found to express our gratitude, we could never have done it without every single one of you and your generosity. We are honored to be your Teamster brothers and sisters.

Next step to be announced soon.

In Solidarity!
Ronnie Pineda

Vacation Over, Back to the Table

Vacation over and I'm another year older, I won't bore you with what I did. Calls from L.A. brothers about a change in our practices at the end of the shift came to me last week involving a new practice in L.A.'s. pressroom. Leads now have to be walked in after washing blankets to deter washing out the webs. Does management actually give a crap, when we, not them, have to pick them up. This is another way for supervision to police our work and will give management another way to pit us against one another. How will the individuals that wash out webs be viewed by the rest of the crew when the leads have to be put back in before going home? Now add a couple of bars.

It's obvious a complaint was lodged with the office that previous shifts are washing out webs. This is part of the job and happens on every shift and no one should feel compelled to complain when it happens to them. Blankets can be washed without washing them out, if they are done right, but how many of us actually washes the blankets right knowing that we go home as soon as we're done? It is part of our job and we should be washing them thoroughly for quality purposes, but does not justify the change without collective bargaining.

The appropriate, and only solution would be to go back to washing before the run. This would ensure that washing will be done properly and give supervision the opportunity to inspect the blankets if they chose to. If the blankets need further cleaning that can be addressed while the employee assigned to that particular unit is still there. If a lead is washed out, you pick up your own leads, not leads washed out by the previous crew because they were anxious to bolt out of there as quickly as possible. Washing before the run as we used to do has been suggested many times to management and is considered by Russ as only a way to get a bigger bust-out. This was the standard prior to Walker changing the washing process back in 2003 and should be reversed at this time because it hasn't seemed to slow anyone down and it will guarantee clean blankets everyday, every run. We have proposed this in our overall contract proposal and will pursue this change further today.

We will have more information pertaining to the company's written response to our request for information regarding the recent raises given to non-union production employees as soon as the committee meets with our representative Sonny Shannon today. The written response was being reviewed by our attorney in Washington and President Tedeschi. We on the committee are just as anxious as are all of you to learn what our options are in this matter.

I personally hope that the company comes to the table today with a willingness to salvage the progress we felt we had made right up until the closing hour of our last negotiations. As I stated in a previous post, we had expressed a willingness to show some flexibility and it was not fully reciprocated in their latest proposal regarding seniority. Flexibility has been their number one request, yet they have shown none. We are expected to respond to their latest package proposal and will pick up where we left off.

News from this round of negotiations will be posted after we conclude on Wednesday.

Is the new Publisher a Union Guy?

"No Go" tiations!

First, I apologize for the delay in getting this information posted, so let's get started. The latest negotiations which took place on Wednesday July 30th and Thursday July 31st were expected to be very productive on our part, considering where we left off previously. We had essentially felt that a positive dialog had begun and presumed that we would both negotiate from a "mutual interest" point of view.

We began at the table Wednesday morning by receiving the company's reponse to our information request pertaining to the recent "Hybrid" merit raises given to non-union production employees. The legal jargon we've been given in response to previous requests was again being recycled in this response as if it is memorized and put on a rubber stamp for convienience. That being said, our Legal Representatives will review their written response and instruct our Rep's Sonny and Mike as to how we should proceed on this subject. Any wage increase we propose will include that it be retroactive to raises currently being given.

We have expressed an opposition to merit based wage increases from the very beginning because of the evaluation process that is used to determine the eligibilty of an employee to recieive an increase, and the amount of an individual's potential increase based on his or her evaluation. We believe everyone will agree that this process has proven to cater to favortism and also believe you would agree that a "general" wage increase across the board is the only fair method of implementing a wage increase.

As we had previously discussed at the table, and agreed to, Sonny and I, along with the company's representives, Tim Fair and Russ met in "side bar" off the record, thus I cannot devulge the actual conversations that took place during this procedure. Without giving any details of the conversation, Sonny and I listened to items the company considered "deal breakers" and they simply would not consider agreeing to. We listened closely to their concerns and feel that we were willing give some ground to move the negotiations forward and show good faith. This procedure took the better part of Wednesday, and Sonny and I both left the side bar feeling that it was extremely productive and looked forward to getting back to the table, and back on record.

Thursday's negotiations began early with much anticipation. Seniority was an issue we discussed in previous negotiations and felt we were getting close to an agreement at that time. In the final hour, the company decided they would propose to classify each position and in the event of staffing reductions, the lowest seniority pressperson in a specific classification would be laid off first. We said we would agree to that concept if they would agree to "bumping rights" which would allow a senior pressperson who's job classification experiences a reduction in staffing to bump someone with less seniority outside of that classification, thus resulting in the last man in, first man out. Their pat answer of "we're not interested" and their unwillingness to agree to reverse seniority without classification caused this subject to be set aside.

Sonny felt that this topic (seniority) was a good place to begin on Thursday morning and would also be used to gauge the company's movement in the negotiations in general, simply because this issue does not have an economic impact on the company one way or another.
We have stood fast on the principle of reverse seniority in the event of staffing reductions. The company representatives have sought to layoff and recall according to skills and ability.
The problem with their approach, like merit raises, allows for favortism. Another concern of our's with this concept is, who will be responsible for determining one's skills and abilities?
Management? Supervision? Sam Zell? Again favortism surfaces.

We prepared and presented a "package proposal" giving the company the "management rights" they sought with the inclusion of language that would prevent their mgt. rights from superceeding the agreements contained in the contract. In exchange we were asking for seniority language which included reverse seniority in the event of staffing reductions, union security, which requires union membership to work in our shops, and dues check off, requiring the company to deduct union dues from members payroll and forward those dues to the local.
Remember, all union dues are tax deductable and we don't pay dues until we ratify a contract.

Our package proposal was rejected, and the company presented a counter proposal in which they sought to protect up to 15 individuals they deemed "high performers" they would like to retain in the event of layoffs. This number amounted to 6% of the 248 workforce employed in the pressrooms. Our first reaction was, again, favortism will flourish under this concept. Sonny challenged their number of 15 and used a hypothetical layoff of 20 individuals and illustrated that if they could protect 15 of the 20, they would actually receive 75% protection for their favorites from being laid off. There was no way we would even consider this and counter proposed, for the purpose of moving forward, a 1 in 20 ratio that would allow them to protect 1 in 20 if a layoff were to occur. So in order for them to save 1 of their high perfomers, a minimum of 20 individuals would have to be targeted for layoff. If 39 positions are being eliminated, they would still only be able to protect 1 high performer.

Another section of their proposal contained new language which would essentially strip the union of it's "jurisdiction" and allow the company to bring in any one they choose to run our presses without them having to join the Teamsters. The extreme danger of this language would also allow the company to send our work outside the buliding to other workers without recourse. This language was introduced, once again, in the final hour mucking up the progress we had felt we were making. Sonny became very irate with the company representatives for attempting to introduce this language knowing that this would be highly scrutinized and rejected by our side of the table. The company came with another counter proposal eliminating the protections for high performers, and gave us reverse seniority, but was not interested in removing the language that trampled on the unions jurisdiction. This package proposal by the company was made with the stipulation that if rejected, it would be retracted. Sonny accused them of intentionally throwing a wrench in the process by doing so and broke off negotiations for the day.

Sonny, Mike, President Tedeschi and our Legal Team in Washington will review our last proposal and the company's as well, and determine how to proceed. I trust they will hammer out a plan that will put our negotiations on the track it needs to be on to achieve our goal of negotiating a "fair" collective bargaining agreement. Stand fast and be patient, we'll can get there together, in solidarity!

52nd Annual North American Newspaper Conference

I had the privilege of attending the 52nd Annual NANC this past week in Scottsdale, Arizona. This is an annual joint conference with delegates from both the GCC and Teamster's Newspaper, Magazine and Electronic Media. Keith Denson and I were honored to attend the 51st NANC last year in Florida and we both admit it was a very educational and eye opening experience.

During the conference Union Delegates from newspapers across the country meet to discuss the state of the newspapers they work for and the activities their Locals are involved in for their members.

Numerous workshops are held to focus on specific areas of union business. I was fortunate to be appointed to the organizing committee in which we discussed the many obstacles we face attempting to win representation and how to overcome those hurdles. Delegates from newspapers owned by Dean Singleton, Gannett, Rupert Murdoch and our very own Sam Zell participated in a very spirited discussion and I was astonished to specifically learn from each delegate that the assault on employees by their owners is more prevalent than ever imagined before.

The Employee Free Choice Act which failed to pass legislation in its maiden attempt due to an employer friendly republican senate would have allowed employees to join a union without having a secret ballot election. Employers have exploited the current election process and utilizes every anti-union, anti-employee tactic at their disposal. The EFCA would allow employees to join by simply signing a membership card. Democratic Presidential hopeful Senator, Barak Obama supports the EFCA and organized labor. Senator Obama has spoken with Teamster General President Jim Hoffa assuring him that he will be a Pro Labor President. The Teamsters support Barak Obama for President and I think we should all vote for him in November.

I was also invited by our GCC/IBT Organizer Marty Keegan to sit in on the newspaper committee with several delegates from Zell owned newspapers as well as the others I mentioned earlier. We all share the same concerns regarding the sale to our newspapers to Sam Zell and the decisions being made that affect all of our futures. The Teamsters have fought the sale of Tribune to Sam Zell from day one understanding that an ESOP without employee representation is nothing more than deceitful. Declining ad revenue, declining circulation and staffing reductions seemed to be the major subjects discussed in this committee.

There was good news regarding the GCC and an increase of 3% in membership after years of membership declines due to plant closures and consolidations. Unions across the nation are winning elections by employees seeking representation to protect their interests in their workplace. All L.A. Times employees need to consider organizing in order to have a voice considering the latest announcement to further reduce staffing at our newspaper. I'll admit, Sam said a lot of things that lead many of us to believe that he was going to do good by all of us and the paper by building it, instead he is dismantling it faster than any of us ever imagined.

I also met with our President George Tedeschi, Teamster Organizer Manny Valenzuela, GCC/IBT Organizer Marty Keegan, International Representatives Sonny Shannon and Mike Huggins to discuss our negotiations and created a plan to insure that we are given every opportunity to negotiate a fair Collective Bargaining Agreement. Those of you who attended our chapel meeting in Monrovia were made aware of options we and the Teamsters hope to utilize in an effort to raise awareness and support for our pressrooms from the community. These meetings at the conference set the groundwork for building our support base around the country and in the local public sector which is valuable in motivating the company to bargain in good faith.

I would like to thank GCC/IBT President George Tedeschi, Secretary Treasurer Bob Lacey, NANC President/Chairman Joseph Inemer, Director Joe Molinero and especially all of my brothers and sisters in the L.A. Times pressrooms for allowing me the opportunity to represent our shops at the conference, and with great humbleness, allowing me to address the body of conference delegates and deliver a report on our negotiations.

To all the brothers and sisters at the conference, thanks for supporting our shops and negotiations and especially for the wholehearted brotherhood that each and every one of you lives by, I am always inspired by all of you and your sincerity, it is contagious and I hope it spreads to our pressrooms. It was a pleasure to spend time with Lou Nicosia and Mike Laspina from Local 406, Hello to all from both of them. Thanks to President Dennis Grabhorn and everyone at Newsday for your support. Good Luck with your impending change of ownership, I can only hope that we suffer the same fate and some one who gives a damn about this city and it's newspaper gets the chance to buy us before there's nothing left. (Are you listening Geffen?) It was also a pleasure to spend time with, and to learn from the brothers and sisters I had the privilege of meeting at last years conference, and the new ones I met this year.

Negotiations will resume on Monday, June 16Th.