Go back to news pageSAN FRANCISCO -- Reporters and photographers for the Associated Press in San Francisco have gone on a byline strike to prevent their names from appearing in the San Francisco Chronicle and Examiner while 2,600 employees from the newspapers are on strike.
So far, ten people from AP's San Francisco bureau have agreed to withold their bylines, says AP reporter Jim Clifford, an action that effectively means their names will not appear in in any AP story published throughout the world.
The AP employees decided to take the drastic action after having received orders to write extra stories and extra photographs for the striking dailies.
"We don't want our friends and relatives to think we're scabbing, at least that's my concern," Cifford said today. He said colleagues would understand the bylines, "but it would be difficult to explain to friends."
The Chronicle and Examiner staffs have been on strike since last Tuesday at 10 p.m. Management for both papers has set Wednesday, Nov. 9, at 5 p.m. as the deadline for staff to return to work or be replaced by non-union workers. Clifford.
AP reporter Richard Cole, who also signed the petition, believes the news service "should maintain its neutrality in the strike." Cole added that it would be "a shame if the largest and oldest news-gathering organization in the world" was perceived as a "strike-breaking institution."
"It would not help us (AP) in the long run," said Cole, also pointing out that AP managment is in a difficult position. "When papers call for help, we bend over backwards to do so. But this casts us as strikebreakers."
In this instance, said Cole, AP "leaned over too far to help management." The byline strike would affect all stories written by those signing the petition, regardless of what newspaper the stories would appear in nationally.
AP writer and photographers are members of the Wire Service Guild. "Our contract says (use of) our byline is our call," said Clifford.
The full text of the staff statement reads, "We, the undersigned members of the Assoicated Press staff in San Francisco, are withholding bylines from all staff-produced copy until further notice.
"We reluctantly take this action bcause the management of the Associated Press had ordered us to write additional stories and take photos expressly for use by the San Francisco Chronicle and the San Francisco Examiner. Union workers at both newspapers are currently on striie. We feel this requirement places us on the side of management in that strike.
"We take no position in the on-going dispute between the newspapers' management and their unions and feel the Associated Press should also remain neutral."
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