Guzmangate Continues
As some of you may have read yesterday, the Newspaper Guild is suing the P.I. over the existence of online reporter Monica Guzman. After the jump you'll find a little more depth — specifically, the initial blast e-mail sent out by Guild rep Liz Brown and P.I. publisher Roger Oglesby's response. It's interesting stuff that could help to define whether papers can circumvent union regulations when it comes to hiring web-specific talent in an increasingly web-specific age, but having read Guzman's stuff, we think their anger is misplaced. The Guild shouldn't be suing the P.I. for pulling an end-around; they should be suing the P.I. for failure to adhere to reasonable journalistic standards by hiring such a dolt to be the face of its web content. But then, that's about what you'd expect from a crew of aging hipster wannabe suckups who serve up Sassy D. Parvaz (a full-time blogger in columnist's clothing; shouldn't she have gotten Guzman's gig?) and "Snark Attack" every Saturday. And now, for the Brown-Oglesby e-mail ping-pong...
To: All P-I Guild members
From: Liz Brown, Guild administrative officer
Re: Legal action against the P-I
I want everyone at the P-I to hear about this first from the union.
Today, the Guild is filing a lawsuit against the Seattle Post-Intelligencer in U.S. District Court. The lawsuit seeks to compel the P-I to honor our contract and submit a dispute over the online reporter position to binding arbitration.
It's extremely unusual for the Guild to file a lawsuit against an employer, for a couple of reasons.
First, we try to settle disputes before they turn into grievances. Second, all 16 contracts administered by our local, including the P-I agreement, require us to submit unresolved grievances to an arbitrator. The last time we filed for arbitration at the P-I was in 2001.
In this case, the P-I says it simply won't participate. It's such an egregious abrogation of our contract that we are forced to respond with the lawsuit.
The bottom line: The P-I insists that the duties of an online reporter are different from those of Guild members, which makes it okay to assign the online reporter duties to someone not in the bargaining unit. The Guild contract says the union has jurisdiction over "all work presently being performed by Guild members in the Editorial and Business office," and we believe the duties of an online reporter are the same duties you perform.
Our members blog, write stories, shoot photo galleries, record audio and report breaking news runs only online. Guild members have made the P-I a "Web first" news operation.
We all know where the industry is headed. We'll leave it to others to speculate why the P-I is so resistant to the idea of online work belonging within the union's jurisdiction. What we're hearing from our members, in our ongoing survey, is that you're doing a lot of online work, and you want to keep your bargaining rights while you do it.
-----Original Message-----
From: Oglesby, Roger
Sent: Tuesday, September 25, 2007 7:15 PM
To: PiStaff
Subject: Guild lawsuit
Along with many people both inside and outside the P-I, I was disturbed to hear today that the Guild has said it is filing a lawsuit. I continue to believe, as I said in my Sept. 13 email, that negotiation is a vastly preferable alternative to litigation, which is expensive and damages valuable relationships built over a long period of time. We all know this from the experiences of the last four years. Litigation, once under way, can quickly get out of control and threaten much that we all hold dear.
Someone sent me an email in reply to my message Sept. 13 that led me to believe there may not be a universally accurate understanding of the facts underlying the Guild's position in this matter. Let me clarify a couple of things.
Under a 1998 agreement with the P-I, the Guild agreed that it did not represent our new media employees. Last year the Guild attempted to cancel that agreement unilaterally, and the P-I is resisting that effort. An agreement is an agreement, and there is nothing in the terms of this one that allows unilateral cancellation by either party. Agreements can be changed, of course, if the parties reach consensus on how they should be changed. But that requires negotiation.
The fact is, the P-I can't accede to arbitration in this dispute because it is not an appropriate matter for arbitration under federal law. I recognize the Guild represents a certain group of people at the P-I. But it does so only by their choice, and it doesn't represent everyone. Among those it doesn't represent are the P-I's new media employees, and that is not something the Guild can change through arbitration.
The Guild' s representation of employees here is subject to the terms of a labor contract. If the leadership would agree to come to the table, negotiation of this dispute would begin with the existing terms of that contract and proceed in an orderly fashion from there. I continue to hope the Guild will put the best interests of its P-I members first and pursue that path. The future of those of us who work in this building is best assured by focusing our resources on great journalism rather draining them through needless and damaging litigation. The stakes are high. One must wonder who benefits from these actions - certainly not the P-I and its employees.
9 comment(s)
Sean says:
What exactly make\'s Monica Guzman a \"dolt\".
Posted On: Thursday, Sep. 27 2007 @ 11:27PM
Seely says:
Her body of work. Proof\'s in the puddin\'.
Posted On: Friday, Sep. 28 2007 @ 4:30AM
Sean says:
Hmm, I read a lot of local articles that have me tearing out my hair and screaming \"idiot!\", but nothing yet from her (not that I\'ve read everything she\'s written).
I actually thought her series on the latino day workers was great.
Posted On: Friday, Sep. 28 2007 @ 9:10AM
Jim Thomsen says:
Count me among Monica Guzman\'s defenders. Sure, she\'s young, and sure, some of her trendsucking hipster references don\'t resonate with comparative oldsters like me (42), but she\'s industrious, open to learning new things and has reasonable writing chops. I\'m normally as irritated as anyone at carpetbaggers trying to instantly become the media face of Seattle, but Monica\'s making a pretty strong effort, in my opinion.
And this comes from one of Monica\'s biggest critics ... I\'ve sent her some pretty withering criticisms of her \"Big Blog,\" and she\'s listened and even taken some of the suggestions to heart. (As well as ignored me when she felt she was right, which any writer with backbone should do).
All this is beside the point, though ... with the bigger point being that in 10 years or so, all of us in the business may be online workers. So what the P-I\'s doing, regardless of the facts of this particular case, is trying to level a pre-emptive strike against the Guild that could surgically excise it in the future.
Journalists are journalists, new media or old, and if one set is eligible Guild membership, so the other should be.
Posted On: Friday, Sep. 28 2007 @ 11:30AM
kevin says:
I guess she\'s a dolt because she isn\'t some stuffed-butt, pompous, has-been who belongs to a union that has outlived its usefulness.
Posted On: Friday, Sep. 28 2007 @ 12:49PM
kevin says:
actually, the newspaper guild ought to at least rename itself \"Whiners R Us\" and this legal action is so typical of their petty, back-to-the-stone-age, UAW-type mentality.
Posted On: Friday, Sep. 28 2007 @ 12:51PM
Jim Thomsen says:
Sure, because it\'s appropriate that management ?beholden to stockholders ?should have 100 percent control over the working environment and compensation context, and workers should simply shut up, take what they\'re given and do what they\'re told (even if it\'s off the clock).
Nothing Stone-Age about THAT mentality, huh?
Posted On: Friday, Sep. 28 2007 @ 2:55PM
COMTE says:
Actually, the Guild would be completely remiss by not aggressively pursuing jurisdiction in this case, even if in the end any sort of legal decision goes against them.
On the other hand, if they WIN, they will have set a huge legal precedent that will resonate for years, since it will have effectively opened the door for other unions (AFTRA would be one pertinent example) to claim similar jurisdiction over work product performed online.
Right now, the Internet is sort of like the Oklahoma Territory; everyone is rushing in to stake a claim, without really knowing for certain which \"properties\" have any actual value. It would be foolish on anyone\'s part - management and unions alike - to unilaterally cede any territory to the other at this point, because no one at this point can predict how all this new technology, and the accompanyinig new media delivery systems it is generating are going to sort themselves out over the next few years.
Posted On: Tuesday, Oct. 2 2007 @ 4:45PM
Johnson says:
A union that only months ago was harping about keeping Seattle a two-newspaper-town is now likely killing the P-I. Something tells me this lawsuit will be the end. A strike, a JOA lawsuit and now a lawsuit by the organization that represents the employees who\'s asses were just saved. Ever heard of three strikes and you\'re out? Hearst will bail. This plan was hatched by the Seattle Times folks who have a much larger number of union membership.
Posted On: Wednesday, Oct. 10 2007 @ 9:05PM