ANG NEWSPAPERS VIOLATED FEDERAL LABOR LAW - National Labor Relations Board rules

[Omaha Steve]

http://www.sanfranciscosentinel.com/?p=5069

Northern California Media Workers Guild has announced that a three-member panel of the National Labor Relations Board has found that MediaNews Group’s ANG Newspapers violated federal labor law by unilaterally imposing a policy restricting employees’ use of the company email system.

The NLRB panel ordered the company to rescind its illegal policy, post notices that it would cease violating the law and bargain in good faith with the Guild before imposing any more such rules.

However, the NLRB let stand a prior email policy, which left the immediate impact of the decision unclear.

The company, which is a part of the Denver, Colo., based MediaNews Group, a national chain headed by media mogul Dean Singleton, controls through its California Newspapers Partnership the Contra Costa Times, San Jose Mercury News, Oakland Tribune and virtually every other Bay Area newspaper except the San Francisco Chronicle and Santa Rosa Press-Democrat.

Recently, MediaNews has canceled all contract negotiations and moved to withdraw recognition of the Guild as bargaining representative for employees at the ANG newspapers, which include the Trib and four other dailes. The company cited a planned consolidation with the Contra Costa Times and an affiliated group of weeklies that haven’t been unionized. The Guild has filed more charges with the NLRB challenging the withdrawal of recognition at ANG.

“We are heartened by the NLRB’s decision on the email policy, and hope the company moves quickly to abide by the remedies laid out in the decision,” said Carl Hall, Local Representative for the Media Guild. “This company apparently can’t be trusted when it says it wants to abide by the law when it comes to labor relations. It’s time for MediaNews to end its unfair attacks on its own employees, sit down with us and work out creative solutions. We need to find better ways to serve readers and advertisers, but instead this management has been wasting time picking fights it can’t win.”

The email decision caps a six-year battle by the Guild to defend the rights of employees and union leaders to communicate effectively in modern newsrooms. Starting in 2001, management sought to impose onerous email rules against “broadcast” messages seemingly designed to stifle the conduct of even routine union business.