Godzilla vs. Mothra, redux

The Seattle Times has notified the Seattle P-I that it has had three more years of losses. (For those of you not following this saga, it means that the two newspapers, which are in a joint-operating agreement, are still trying to kill each other.)

See the Seattle Times story here.
See the Seattle P-I story here.

In good news, the Boeing Machinists have a contract and are back at work.

Job cuts at the Merc

The San Jose Mercury News is cutting 56 Guild-covered jobs through buyouts or layoffs.

More info here.

Union-busting at NPR?

I can't take much more of this union-busting at public broadcasters. Public broadcasters are supposed to be the good guys, dammit!

Maybe we CAN all get along ...

Boeing and the Machinists have reached a tentative agreement and members vote Thursday on the contract. Seattle Times story (and WorkingLife discussion) here.

Good. It was starting to get cold in Seattle...

Meanwhile, in Canada, Telus workers and management are heading back to the bargaining table.

And CBC and CMG bargaining teams are talking in the Labour Minister's office.

Job cuts, buyouts

The New York Times Co. is cutting 500 jobs (4 percent of its workforce).

The Philadelphia Inquirer announced a buyout plan.

Unions and younger workers

Here's UFCW rocks.

Here's a story on unions and younger workers from (I think) the UC Berkeley labor center.

And even more from the UC Berkeley labor center here.

A paper on unions and younger workers out of Singapore, prepared for last year's UNI conference.

UNI has a whole youth page here.

Something from AFSCME on the subject.

UAW has a slide show and teacher's guide for showing in the schools.

A British piece on the New Union Generation.

"Betting on the Future: Youth and the Labor Movement" from campusprogress.org.

A story from earlier this summer in an Australian magazine called Radar.

"Young People: The Labour Market and Trade Unions."

"Young People's Attitudes to Trade Unions."


"Youth at Work" by Stuart Tannock

SEIU's Generation S site

"Two activists say unions 'gotta get into young people"


"Myths about Unions" from the CUPE site.


"Imperfect Unions: Does organized labor make sense for Young Americans," Reason magazine.

"The Labor Movement and the Anti-War Movement."

Miami Herald

According to this Editor & Publisher story, Miami Herald editor Tom Fiedler is meeting with employees to tell them why they don't need a union.

His take?: "Guilds essentially ensure mediocrity."

Somebody tell this guy that USA Today is hiring...

Reuters byline strike

Reuters reporters are doing a five-day byline strike to protest stalled negotiations.

Working with the Teamsters

Hey, look!: We (CWA) get to be friends with the Teamsters!

Not that I wasn't gonna be anyway, but it's good to know that the big boys have decided to play nice, too...

Solidarity with the Machinists

Pacific Northwest Newspaper Guild Administrative Officer Liz Brown (center) stands with our Machinist brothers at the Boeing Renton plant.

Machinists are fighting for the next generation

Seattle Times writer (and Guild member) Danny Westneat has a column today about Machinist strikers fighting for the next generation: "Trying to keep good thing going." (After it goes into the archive, you can go to bugmenot.com to get a password to get into the site.)

Here's a quote in it from a 64-year-old striker:

"At my age, a strike's not so smart. It's going to cost me. If it was just me, I could vote for this contract. But they're sticking it to the young people, to workers just starting out. I absolutely won't go along with that."

Photo from the Vancouver picket line

This post is late, but here's a photo of 3 locked-out CBC workers (on the left), and our delegation of 5 supporters who drove up from Seattle last Saturday. There would have been more of us, but lots of people already had plans for the holiday weekend.

Poll: "Does Canada need the CBC?"

Hey, go to the Globe and Mail Web site and tell them that yes, Canada needs the CBC.

Update: Looks like they've taken down the poll. Feel free to go there if you want to voice your opinion on sharia law, however...

American Apparel

Quarterlife Crisis has a forum thread on whether or not to support American Apparel. (On the one hand, they're non-sweatshop, on the other hand, they have a bad reputation regarding unions.)

Machinists on strike

They rejected the contract, and went out at 12:01 a.m. today.

Here's a quote from the Seattle Times story:

Steve Pewitt, an expediter at the Everett plant for 24 years, said he voted to strike because he doesn't trust the company. Three years ago, he said, he voted to accept Boeing's contract offer because the economy was in such bad shape. That's not the case now, he said.

"What bugs me the most is that they tried to divide the older members and the younger ones. They assumed that older members wouldn't care about the younger generation and that the younger members wouldn't be thinking about their retirement," said Pewitt, 45.

Young Workers United

Did I post the link to these guys already? It's a group called Young Workers United. Haven't had a chance to really look at it, but didn't want to lose track of it.