Wednesday, October 7, 2009
Media / News Bites "The Complete Package"
Posted by Michael Miner on 10.07.09 at 06:42 PM
Newspaper Guild units representing employees of Sun-Times Media Group papers are voting Wednesday evening on what Chicago Newspaper Guild president Lynne Stiefel calls a "complete package." It's an exceptionally hard-to-swallow set of contract concessions demanded by financier Jim Tyree if his investment group is to buy the assets of the bankrupt STMG, but it does see sees Tyree cutting the guild a tiny amount of slack after days of intense meetings between the guild and STMG management.
Here's the Sun-Times report of this agreement.
The new package has already been approved by the guild unit at the Lake County News-Sun, which rejected Tyree's original demands by a vote of 12 to 4.
With the guild's blessing, however reluctantly given, Tyree's investment group, the only bidder in a bankruptcy court auction, is expected to be announced Thursday as the new owner of the STMG.
Comments (17)
Showing 1-17 of 17
Mr. Tyree,
Please make your first move swiftly and fire Rick Nagel and Fred Lebolt. They've ruined the suburban papers and nobody has ever held them accountable. They're newsroom punch lines.
Thank you!
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And lose your IT brass: good people on the front lines, your top IT managers can't order phones without disrupting the productivity of the whole company for 2 weeks, and that's just the tip of the iceburg.
And Please fix our web sites!
No matter what anyone downtown tells you they are dysfunctional, they have to stop pretending the servers are working when they are not.
Please, please think about it: How Many Vice President's do you really need? What on eart do they truly contribute to the bottom line?
As a former STNG editor, I second newsroom's suggestion - Lebolt and Nagel, especially Nagel, must go.
Interestingly enough -- and I won't hold my breath over this one -- the latest thought on the universal copy desk is different. They're kicking around the idea of having a universal desk, just not in one location.
If a copy editor from the Sun-Times was assigned to that duty, for example, that person would stay in the Sun-Times building (although that paper might be moved to a site owned by Mesirow) instead of moving to Aurora, the current home of that desk.
To everyone that worked so hard at getting this resolved, just two words:
THANK YOU
And I agree with what newsroom said, Nagel and Lebolt must go. These men are newsroom tyrants who are clueless about the work that is being done by their steadily dwindling staff. We are merely drones there to do whatever latest scheme they dream up to make this failure of a universal media desk successful. And PLEASE stop giving the work of our talented reporters and photographers away for free on our Web sites. This business model doesn't work on so many levels. Please visit our newspapers -- all of them -- meet the people who will be working for you and who are grateful to see this company get a second chance. We are a talented, energetic people who have been held under the thumb of tyrannical managers who are so incompetent they lead by micromanaging rather than trusting the trained professionals they have working for them. Instead of 200 vice-presidents of pencil-pushing, try hiring a few more reporters, photographers, editors, designers, sales reps and marketing professionals. These are the people you need in the trenches working to make your papers stronger and profitable.
We could definitely use more hiring as save our jobs said, but since they are making pay cuts I doubt they'll be looking to expand the staff anytime soon.
the vote was 89-24 at the Sun-Times to accept the concessions. The sad part is, I can't imagine this company being around in 10 years. This is just a blood transfusion for a patient that won't stop bleeding
This is really to bad. Coming from someone who's family is a beneficiary of STMG healthcare and my spouse's pay (she is a Guild member), I am disappointed in the votes. Where did the anger go? You have voted for almost exactly the same thing they offered before!! This is really a question of how long, and how far, working people are going to have to bend in order to stay employed. I just got back from the SK Picket line on 47th, where they are striking because the company took away their healthcare (without informing them until a month later!!). Would that be too much for Guild members? The working class of america is going down down down.........
Guild Spouse.
There wouldn't have been a business left for Guild members to picket. The next step was liquidation which meant we were all unemployed and the business' assets would be sold off piece by piece. The anger was replaced by reality that there were two choices, take what the company was willing to bend on negotiation-wise and still have a job and some income or leave it and be standing in line at the unemployment office where the check would be smaller than what Tyree and Co. are offering.
This company has very talented and hard working employees in all departments. We may have some very frustrating days, however, we do enjoy our jobs. Hopefully, Mr. Tyree will recognize that he has something that neither he nor anyone else can buy. He has a group of people that really do care about these papers and their survival. If we didn't care, we wouldn't have stuck it out for the past several years. It's going to take even more hard work to get this company back on it's feet. If we have a management team in place that makes sound and reasonable decisions, I firmly believe that we can accomplish this.
We need a team of leaders that will listen to the ideas that come from the employees and we need to be in an environment where the employees can feel free to express those ideas. Some ideas will be great and others will be horrific, however, they should all be heard. The best ideas do not come from just a select few. (Yes, I already know what you're thinking: Lately the worst ideas have come from a select few.) The regular everyday employees in this company know better than anyone what our readers want and when your fighting for advertising dollars, it's quite simple: more readers = more advertising dollars. This company has the talent; the priorities need to be put back in order.
As the saying goes: If you want to know how the war is really going, don't ask the generals, ask the troops on the ground.
The Guild members have been through some very trying times lately. When this is all over, I hope that those that voted 'yes' and those that voted 'no' will take a step back and not let these differences in opinion stand between them. In the larger scope of things, if you are going to be angry with someone, there are much more important things in life to be angry about.
Be angry that you, the STMG employee, just purchased the Sun Times, for a bunch of millionaires, with your givebacks from your negotiated labor agreements!
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