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Strike That

Disappointing Contract in Hand, "Times" Employees Return to Work

by Phil Campbell

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Annie Marie Musselman

How do we know this? Listen to Kerry Coughlin, the spokeswoman for The Seattle Times. As always, Coughlin's tone was unequivocal when The Stranger talked to her last Friday. "We only made minor changes to the contract," she said flatly. "There were no real changes from the pre-strike offer." She made the boast as a challenge: Portray me however you want--my side won.

Coughlin's tough talk isn't just bravado. She's right. The 48-day history of the strike is traceable: a downward spiral of setbacks for the guild. Start with November 21, the day the strike started. The Pacific Northwest Newspaper Guild members demanded a $3.25-an-hour raise spread over a three-year contract. All employees would have a 401(k) plan with a fair investment match from their employer. And Times circulation drivers would finally get a decent automobile gasoline reimbursement plan.

Times management laughed at that offer. Publisher Frank Blethen counter-proposed a $3.25-an-hour wage spread over six--not three--years. Forget the 401(k), and forget about gas mileage. Hundreds of employees got mad and went on strike, but after only a couple weeks, guild representatives began to sweat profusely. Seeing how immobile Blethen truly was, they began stressing at press conferences just how "flexible" they could be on all their issues.

By this week, the guild was voting on an entirely unpalatable contract offer. The Times basically stuck to its initial wage offer, with workers getting an average raise of 55¢ an hour each year for six years. Furthermore, the Times' share of health coverage would only nudge up from 70 percent to 75 percent. Circulation workers would get a negligible reimbursement offer for personal automobile usage. What's more, the paper forced a reluctant portion of the advertising salespeople to go on commission. There was one plum, but it only benefited relatively underpaid suburban reporters. Within three years, these folks would be making as much as their downtown counterparts.

The bottom fell out on the guild by late December, when Times management announced the hiring of permanent replacement workers. The guild reacted by complaining to the National Labor Relations Board, but that effort seemed lodged in futility. True, guild members showed their unison by emphatically voting down the Times' December contract offer, but they had no real choice. Had they accepted it, they would have agreed to let Blethen take a full year before he hired back 68 fellow guild members.

The pivotal moment may have occurred on December 27, when the guild held a separate contract vote for newsroom employees of the Seattle Post-Intelligencer. The P-I's reporters, photographers, and copy editors accepted the the Hearst Corporation's offer--even though that contract boasted only small financial gains for guild members. Guild officials, it seems, strategized that if the P-I newsroom returned to work, Blethen would be pressured into relenting to Times employee demands faster. That's a nice theory, but in fact it appears to have backfired: Blethen might have been anxious to compete again with the P-I, but once he saw Hearst get away with a good deal, he sure wasn't going to budge at the bargaining table.

Ultimately, the strike devolved from the issue of fair wages. When the negotiations moved to Washington, D.C., the main issue wasn't wages, but whether or not all the strikers' jobs could be saved.

The Stranger interviewed dozens of frustrated Times strikers for this story, and held last-minute conversations at Seattle Center on Sunday, January 7, when workers met to discuss the Times' final offer. (They voted to approve the flimsy contract by a wide margin on Monday, January 8.) Few blame the guild for failing to secure a better contract. ("They made technical, not moral, mistakes," says one Times reporter, who wishes the guild had better prepared the newsroom staff for a strike.) The strikers universally hope that this strike marks the beginning of stronger guild unity in the future.

The final contract still has provisions for possible layoffs and a potential return-to-work schedule of six months for some workers. Given that, how could the mood among Times workers be anything but weary resignation? "A lot of people are just tired of striking," says Dolores Low, a circulation employee. "But it's hard to go back to work for [the Times]. A lot of people just don't trust the company now."

phil@thestranger.com