Strib Guild Says "Yea" 210-27.
By Brian Lambert
The "yes" part of the Strib's Guild vote on a new contract with fumbling, bumbling rapidly tanking Avista Capital Partners was not a surprise. The margin, 210-27, caught me off guard. I thought there might be a few more newsroomies willing to take the risk that the existing deal will survive at least as long as Avista does in Minnesota.
The deal, such as it is, is not pretty. But then very little is lovely in newspaper land these days. As explained to me by arts reporter and Guild newsroom unit co-chair Graydon Royce, he and his colleagues are looking at a 16-month wage freeze, as the deal goes into effect, August 1, then a 1.25% raise for six months, then "1% for a period of time and then 1.5%. It isn't" said Royce, "a straight year-to-year deal." In addition, (or is it "subtraction") the Guild holds on to its pension (status quo) and continues the company's 2.5% contribution to cash balance accounts (generated by over payment on the pension). Health care -- here comes the broken record -- "Is not as good as it was. We're looking at higher deductibles, higher co-pays. It's like a lot of other places, but we had a great plan once."
A lot of people did. Now it's down to pretty much members of Congress and Bill McGuire.
The looming cliff over which Avista will soon fall, or at least their benighted newspaper venture here in Minnesota, was a primary consideration for other Guild members in the run up to today's vote. If Avista, facing crushing debt with no hope of generating significant new revenue, (here's a link to an excellent story on Avista's debt miasma by Burl Gilyard, Bob Geiger and Mark Anderson in Finance and Commerce), pulls the bankruptcy cord the thinking among the Guild was that they'd have a better chance with the all-powerful bankruptcy judge if they could point to a fresh contract agreed to by their incompetent owners. Basically, they're betting the judge would say to Avista, "No, I'm not going to void the contract. You just negotiated this thing a month ago. You knew what you were signing."
Royce says the new contract fulfills Avista's stated demand to trim $2.5 million from future newsroom expenses. He also says the Guild insisted and got new language requiring Avista to offer buy-outs before lay-offs. That has been the norm, but until now it wasn't contractual. "We just didn't feel we could count on the historical pattern," said Royce. Good thinking.
If the Strib does go to another round of staff reductions, (the possibility is not mitigated by this new deal). lay-offs would be seniority-based, cutting newest (and cheapest) first.
Columnist Nick Coleman was one of the 27 voting "nay".
"It wasn't that I was opposed to the contract as much as there was a kind of panicky feel to the decision, a agreement I might add with a company that the majority of Guild members by their own admission don't trust. But I was arguing that there was no reason not to wait a week or so, if only to see what the other unions do with their [health care] negotiations."
Without getting all eye-glazey with health care sub-clauses, the Strib's other unions, via the so-called Inter-Plant Council are working out their health care deals. Coleman's view, shared by others, is that newsroom employees couldn't be any worse off choreographing their deal with the others, at the printing plant and elsewhere.
"I actually proposed they table consideration of the contract for a week or two. But that got voted down something like 90-10, so I shut up and went back to my battle station. But we're being asked to accept a very inadequate health care plan, especially if you're someone like me who needs two Medica cards to list all your dependents. (Chris) Serres and (Steve) Brandt were throwing around numbers like $7000 more that this'll cost us. I guess if you're thinking about emergency surgical procedures you better get 'em done this next week."
He adds, "The meetings for these things are always the same. People start sharing horror stories of their brother-in-law's horrible health care plans, and everyone gets, as I say, this panicky tone to their voices. They talked about this company (Avista) could go crazy at any minute, how it could be in bankruptcy. My point was that we'll never know when they're about to go crazy, but that our position wasn't going to be demonstrably different by waiting a week."
© 2008 MSP Communications, Inc. All rights reserved
Maybe the Guild saved some money on its dental plan premiums. What the hell do the toothless need with one anyhow?
LAMBERT: That's cold ... but funny.
Posted by: Craig Plumfagen on July 24, 2008 at 12:49 AM
Recently, you wrote an excellent piece on local, local as not being the solution for a big city newspaper. More recently you wrote a piece on the collapse of regional magazines.
I note, from time to time, you hint at the real problem--people are just not reading and especially not reading periodicals. It is more than just switching from one advertising platform to another or reading online vs. reading in the dead tree edition; it is in truth a change in consumer preferences for which there does not seem an easy remedy.
If people are abandoning periodicals it makes little difference what the union contract says.
LAMBERT: The "local, local" comments were in relation to a specific group of local magazines. My point was that they were trading in a nearly value-less commodity -- thoroughly information-free "content", and that newspapers aren't all that far from aping the same mistake. Readers that I know are reading as much if not more than ever. They're combing through the internet for reliable information, whether as straight news or analysis and commentary. Many are going there because the information is more tightly focused, some of it is less "moderated" and a lot of it comes with better writing.
As bad as the advertising market is -- which is a direct representation of the overall economy, not just media -- publications/periodicals should be reminding themselves that the service they are providing to their readers and advertisers is useful, honest, reliable information.
I might add that I got a note from an editor of one of the Metropolitan Media lifestyle magazines I wrote about rather uncharitably. She was upset with me for calling her and her colleagues, "kids" and implying that they were all doing sub-standard work. Well, I call everyone who is he same age as my kids, "kids", and I stand by my remarks on the general content of those magazines. But I do not want to leave the impression that that was the "kids" fault. I know for a fact how little they were paid, how much of the entire magazine they were expected to write, (she said each magazine had a $250 free-lance budget) and how absurd the editorial direction was they were operating under. For most it was their first experience in publishing. I'd like to think it is all uphill from Metropolitan Media.
Posted by: Bleuler on July 24, 2008 at 9:10 AM
As noted above via the Finance and Commerce link, Avista is on the verge of having to ask for even MORE cost cutting measures.
In terms of worker protection, I am afraid that this contract will not really make much of a difference at all.
Think about this: Assuming the debt will be sold at 50%, the value of the company is now reduced to something in the neighborhood of $225 million. (And of that, the value of the land is reportedly in the $45 million range).
I think the Cowles family is the only winner in this story...I bet that 1.2 billion is looking awfully good right now!
LAMBERT: One good rumor ... RUMOR, I say ... has Avista trying (again) to cook a fast, sweet deal for the land with Zygi Wilf and being told by their creditors that that was not nearly enough to get their butts out of the boiling water.
Posted by: Pat B on July 24, 2008 at 2:25 PM
Way back when people were trying to figure just who exactly these Avista guys were, I was betting that Zygi would end up being one of the silent partners. Nothing like buying land from yourself right?
I don't think that will turn out to be the case, or the other Avista folks would have put the pressure on him to buy awhile ago to help protect themselves.
He may end up being winner #2 - at some point there will be no other choice but to give up the only asset that will be of any real value. Of course by then the creditors may be willing to play hardball and the price won't be nearly as nice.
With Singelton up to his eyeballs and sinking too, we may end up going from a 2 newspaper town to a NO newspaper town...
Maybe Dr. "Stock Option" McGuire can swoop in, guarantee some good coverage for his baby and buy himself some good pub on the "cheap".
LAMBERT: My long standing estimate of current Strib value -- low $200 to high $100 million -- appears to be eerily accurate ... as of today. Next month it'll be much too high.
Posted by: Pat B on July 24, 2008 at 4:56 PM
(must...resist...urge...to joke about number of Nick's dependants....and Avista's sexist, skinflint healthplans that cover Viagra....but not birthcontrol...)
Posted by: 108 on July 24, 2008 at 5:51 PM
Brian:
I thought that while 108 and his ilk await that long-prayed-for call from the testicle donor hotline and continue to troll anonymously here, that gratuitous personal attacks like 108's chicken shit comment about Coleman and his family not be allowed the imprimatur of being posted on your blog?
It doesn't get any more personal than that. "A new low."
LAMBERT: Nick gets worse every hour of every day. My point was intra-commenter flaming, more than shots at public figures.
Posted by: Jim Leinfelder on July 28, 2008 at 9:41 AM
It’s a joke, Jim. A gentle joke made possible by the ironic timing of a recent Nick column, his quotes here, and his reputation as a virile, swaggering, middle aged man.
LAMBERT: I doubt Nick would take much offense.
Posted by: 108 on July 28, 2008 at 11:12 AM
Oh, really? His wife and kids might find it offensive. Nonetheless, aside from not being funny, it was gratuitous, entirely off-point, and, again, from someone who trolls anonymously but personally.
Posted by: Jim Leinfelder on July 28, 2008 at 11:20 AM