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Labor negotiations continue at San Francisco Chronicle
By MATT KAPKO
Bay City News Service
July 6, 2005
SAN FRANCISCO
The San Francisco Chronicle and its largest group of union employees are continuing to negotiate for a new contract after its old agreement expired June 30.
"We are definitely still talking,'' said Michael Cabanatuan, president of the Northern California Media Workers Guild, which represents 870 guild members employed by the paper.
The guild met with representatives from the paper Wednesday and plan to meet again most of Thursday, he said.
A guild representative says its review of the Chronicle's finances confirmed that the paper lost at least $62 million in 2004, indicating that job losses would be a foregone conclusion under a new contract, according to the guild.
Union leaders have admitted that around 10 percent of the guild jobs at the paper could be lost when a new agreement is reached.
"We've pretty much reached a tentative agreement on how cuts are going to be handled,'' Cabanatuan said today.
Chronicle spokeswoman Patty Hoyt declined to confirm or deny the development, but added that an undetermined amount of jobs will be lost under a new contract.
Cabanatuan, who's also a reporter at the paper, said the union is committed to finding a resolution soon.
"Given the situation that the Chronicle has been losing money, we're aiming at reaching an agreement,'' he said.
The union has yet to go to its members for the authority to call a strike and no strike deadline has been set.
Cabanatuan said the union has been meeting with Chronicle representatives almost daily and that negotiations continue to pivot around the contract's terms.
Vacation time, sick leave and a contract clause that allows new parents to work part-time are all in dispute, but both sides are a long way'' from an impasse, he said.
Guild employees are working under an automatic contract extension that went into effect immediately after the June 30th expiry date, Cabanatuan said. That contract dates back to 1994, when an 11-day strike prompted the paper to continue publishing with non-union employees. The contract was extended in 1997.
Contracts with a total of seven labor unions, representing approximately 1,500 employees at the paper, expired June 30. The newspaper is continuing to negotiate with three labor unions and has reached agreement with three others. |