Mon Nov 14 07:19:29 PST 1994
SAN FRANCISCO -- Major unions representing most of the 2,600 employees of the San Francisco Chronicle, Examiner and Newspaper Agency have ratified a new contract that will extend through 1998.
Some union employees were told to begin returning to work Monday, signaling the formal end of their 11-day strike.
Six of nine unions representing newspaper workers ratified the settlement without significant argument. But Teamster drivers wrangled loud and long on Sunday. The outcome was in doubt until late in the night because rank-and-file drivers of Teamsters Local 921 were dissatisfied with the terms of the proposal. In the end, the drivers voted 316 to 120 in favor of the contract. Vendors and janitors will vote on Monday.
The strike, which began Nov. 1 and ended in the wee hours of Nov. 12, crippled circulation and advertising at the two papers. Both unions and management agreed that it will take weeks to restore lost circulation and to regain advertisers who had withdrawn because of the work stoppage.
The contracts provide for a 3 percent increase in wages, which will total about $105 a week by the end of the pact. Top veteran reporters will receive about $980 a week by 1998.
Bill Wallace, president of The Newspaper Guild Local 52, said the contract obtained as a result of the strike was significantly better than the offer on the table when newspaper employees walked out.
"We've done something that's historic and we think we have reason to be proud,"" he said.
Guild members won increased severance in case of a sale or closure of one of the papers, improved part-time provisions for employees returning from maternity leave, and pay upgrades for librarians.
Doug Cuthbertson, chairman of the Conference of Newspaper Uions, said "the unions went on strike because management was insisting on insultingly minuscule changes in contract language at a time when fuandemental issues should have been discussed."
The message "was an arrogant insult. ... They reaped a harvest. I hope they learned a lesson," he said.
There were just two negative votes Sunday night among the roughly 700 Guild members who packed a Holiday Inn meeting room.
Richard Jordan, chief negotiator for the newspapers, said the strike was avoidable and that the unions obtained very little that they couldn't have obtained by staying at the bargaining table.
The Teamsters meeting was fractious from the outset. The principle issues were the leadership's inability to specify the number of jobs that would be lost as a result of the settlement and the fact that not all drivers will return to work at once.
"There are so many holes in this proposal that you can drive two semis through it," said Jack Ford, president of Local 921.
Ford said it may have been a mistake to stop the strike.
"We shouldn't have gotten off the line in the first place," he said.
Union business agent Richard Collins was unable to say exactly how many jobs the union will lose by attrition over the life of the contract.
Pat Ramirez,a Teamster driver, said "it sounds like the company got the jobs. That's what this whole thing was about, and now they can't tell us how many jobs."
Teamsters secretary-treasuer Andy Cirkelis said that not all drivers can return to work immediately because the strke caused "a certain amount of shutdown in the system, and a loss of circulation. It's going to affect some numbers. Nobody knows how much damage has been done."