Friday, May 23, 2008
Al Diamon
What Does That Mean?
To somebody who isn’t a lawyer, but does own a couple of dictionaries, that would seem to indicate the contract is binding not only on Blethen, but on anybody Blethen sells the Press Herald to. With Blethen actively pursuing a sale of its Maine assets, the clause would appear to provide security to the union and its members, no matter who their new boss turns out to be.
To a lawyer, however, that might not be what the words mean at all. On May 21, Maryann Kelly, Blethen’s director of labor relations, sent a letter to the Guild in which she wrote, “There is no language in our contract that requires the Publisher to make certain as a condition of any sale of assets that the Agreement be assumed by the Purchaser. The Agreement does not impose upon the Publisher any such affirmative duty and any assertion to the contrary is completely without merit.”
Kelly was responding to an April 9 letter from union administrative officer C.J. Betit, in which he warned that if the company didn’t make sure the new owner would abide by the contract with the Guild, which runs through 2011, the labor group would “take any and all legal means necessary to make sure the Publisher honors this contractual obligation.”
In backing up its threat, the Guild cites a 2007 Connecticut case in which a similar clause in a contract between the owner of the Stamford Advocate and its employees blocked the sale of the paper to Gannett. Betit said that situation could repeat itself here.
“Gannett walked away,” he said. “It very much could kill the deal here, depending on who the top bidder is.”
Kelly did not return a phone call seeking comment, but in her letter, she asked the Guild to skip several steps in the contract’s dispute-resolution process to end the conflict over the meaning of the clause as quickly as possible. And she warned that failing to do so in short order could have dire consequences.
“[R]esolution will allow the Publisher to determine whether a sale is possible (thereby preserving as many jobs as possible),” she wrote, “or whether other actions must be taken to ensure the future financial viability and stability of the Portland Press Herald/Maine Sunday Telegram.”
Betit described the tone of the letter as “strident” and rejected the request to skip steps. “We want to follow the process in the contract,” he said.
Blethen had previously announced it hoped to sell its Maine properties by the end of this year and has been talking with interested buyers, including the Guild, for several weeks. In the meantime, the papers’ economic situation appears to be declining. According to a company newsletter distributed to employees this week, advertising revenue in April was down 19.1 percent from the same month last year. “The executive management team is evaluating what operating decisions we may need to make in response to year-to-date business results,” said the newsletter.
According to Betit, Blethen fought hard to keep a successor clause similar to the one in the Portland contract out of its recent deal with the Guild unit at Waterville’s Morning Sentinel.
While it’s not clear why the company doesn’t believe that such a clause would require any new owner to honor the contract with the union, the Connecticut case offers some clues. In that dispute, the Advocate’s owner, the Tribune Co., argued, according to the arbitrator’s decision, that “the language merely addressed the consequences of possible changes in legal form” of either the company or union. Tribune also contended that without additional wording requiring the company to enforce the successor clause, it was not obligated to do so. The arbitrator rejected that reasoning, calling it “mere after the fact rationalization to attempt to avoid the consequences of the successorship language.”
— Filed May 23, 2008
Al Diamon can be e-mailed at aldiamon@herniahill.net.
Posted on Friday, May 23, 2008 in Permalink
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Reader Comments:
An informed, but necessarily anonymous, source offers some further insight on this issue:
"The conflict over the contract language means more than just holding up the sale for the Blethens..
In an asset sale, the new company would dismiss all the workers, who would then be forced to reapply for their jobs, at lower pay. The new company would hire younger, cheaper workers to replace the veteran staff.
This would have a huge impact on the quality of journalism in Maine.
This conflict also illustrates the extent that the newspaper industry is in a state of collapse. The Blethens are so desperate to get as much money as possible for their Maine properties that they are willing to go to war with the union and hurt their own employees. Frank Blethen 10 years ago came to Maine chasing a family legacy. His grandfather was from Maine. Frank Blethen will leave Maine with the family name badly damaged."
Younger, cheaper and having a huge impact on the quality of the journalism, huh? Sounds pretty darn good to me!
Time to inject some fresh skills and real vision. Folks that can act instead of react, when it's too late.
"Thet durn innernet thing come along an' took ma job."
Nobody's forced to reapply for their job. This is America. There's always someone younger and hungrier.
Mmmmm. Smells like coffee.