Friday, December 28, 2007
Al Diamon
No names, please
Filed 12/28/07
Members of the Portland Newspaper Guild local at the Morning Sentinel in Waterville have been working without a contract since Jan. 31, 2006. As negotiations have bogged down, the dispute has gotten …
Anonymous.
Guild members are protesting by withholding their by lines and photo credits on stories. As a reader, you might be excused for thinking that’s a pretty wimpy way of demonstrating union solidarity, but in the odd world of newspaper publishing, refusing to let your employer use your name is tantamount to terrorism.
Sentinel executive editor Eric Conrad sent a memo to all staffers warning them about their actions. “First, we want to be clear,” Conrad wrote, “that the company does not recognize the union's right, or any employee's right, to do this as part of any concerted effort, which is what appears to be happening in this case.” Conrad went on to say that a by line could only be withheld in a dispute over a “profound journalistic difference.”
Nevertheless, by lines started disappearing from the paper on Dec. 26, and several stories, including the lead piece on the front page on Dec. 28, have been credited only to “Morning Sentinel staff.”
According to C.J. Betit, administrative officer for the Portland Newspaper Guild, the sticking points in the negotiations are wages and outsourcing. Betit said reporters and photographers at the paper haven’t had raises since January 2005, and the company has so far refused to offer a salary package that would cover even the increase in the cost of living since then. He said the Sentinel also wants the “unlimited ability to outsource” by using non-union freelancers.
The Waterville paper is the only one of the three dailies owned by the Blethen Maine Newspapers that hasn’t reached a new union agreement. Workers at the Kennebec Journal in Augusta, who are represented by a different union local, settled last year, giving the company expanded rights to outsource. But members of the Guild at the Portland Press Herald got concessions on that point in a deal they signed in November.
“Portland settled and gave protection to employees,” said Betit. “The company has refused to give the same protections at the Sentinel.”
As for how long the by-line strike will last, Betit said the union action was “pretty much the beginning of our mobilizing steps. We’ll take other action as we see fit.”
Conrad seemed to indicate his patience with the protest would have its limits. In his memo, he said, “Finally, in the case of reporters and photographers who request that their names are withheld and hear that the request is granted, the company will determine when is the appropriate time for that employee's byline or credit line to return to our newspapers. This is not up to the employee;
this is up to the publisher.”
Readers left wondering who to praise or blame for the articles they’re reading still have a way to find out. The Sentinel continues to run “shirttails,” newspaper jargon for the taglines at the end of stories that explain how to get in touch with the author by phone or e-mail.
Al Diamon can be e-mailed at aldiamon@herniahill.net.
Posted on Friday, December 28, 2007 in Permalink
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