Anyone up for breaking a strike?

Well said.

 

In some cases, a strike gives management the chance to replace the bulk of the workforce with the lowest common denominator. Going on strike is dangerous when dealing with the type of management we have in the newspaper industry these days.

This has absolutely nothing to do with cops or firefighters. They perform a much different public service than us, and management thinks the average reader can't tell good journalism from bad journalism.

Hell, to the average reader, a "good, well-written column" means "I AGREED with what he wrote!" With a bad column of course being the opposite.

To me, we shouldn't strike, on principle. Nor should we cross the picket line, ever (Though of course I have no problem with the baseball guys who did so a decade ago). But furthermore, striking these days is reckless if one actually expects the robber-barons who run our industry to cave.

 

I don't think so. I think Philly is a game of chicken. It's no secret that KR was a soft touch. New owners are saying they won't be, and can't, because if they don't get some relief they won't be able to pay the mortgage, and the unions will be left to the tender mercies of whomever is in the wings, probably Singleton.

There are examples where a publisher sets out to bust a union, but they are rare. Most publishers know it costs money to replace the newsroom, regardless of quality, and besides, you leave out there a couple hundred people, most of them pretty good propagandists, whose jobs you have taken away and who, along with their relatives, neighbors and friends, will be around to make your life pure hell for the next 20 or 30 years.

The problem with striking is that you lose control, and anything can happen, including the unlikely possibility that you may be on the street forever. If you go on strike, make sure your leaders know how to make a deal, because if they don't, someone else will, and you will just have to take it.

 

... or maybe the motto "greed is good" should have died in 1987, or in Hollywood, where it belongs.

"The system" is all fine and well -- but we can do better. By showing a little social conscience, by not treating CEOs as if they're the ones enabling our society to run the way it does (CEOs can be replaced like anyone else), by employers treating employees with a little humanity instead of as a cog in a machine. ... "That's how our system works" is not good enough. The system can change if we change it.

Yes, I'm idealistic, but damn ... if this is the best we can do ... this kind of selfishness ... well, it doesn't have to be that way.

A company doesn't owe anyone shit. But the way people in charge of those companies can exploit the system and fuck other people over means that there's a flaw in the system.

 

A strike is always dangerous. But if you're not allowed to strike, you never have any leverage. For some employees, when times get really bad, that leverage is all they've got.

 

Biggest problem with a strike in Philly is that there is a better than 50-50 chance a strike kills the Daily News (see SF, Pittsburgh strikes). And how many jobs does that cost?

 

I post this without comment, just because I think it's germane to the topic.

From The Newspaper Guild Web site.

Top reporter minimum, 2003 numbers:

Philadelphia, PA, Inquirer, Daily, News (2) 1224.95 5 yrs

Deferred increases: $27.47 9/1/03, $27.48 9/1/04, $27.47 9/1/05

 

Jersey_Guy, I get what you mean, and I don't think anyone deserves a free ride, and to a large degree unions can hurt causes. But that doesn't mean the other extreme (e.g. companies paying well-trained and hard working people awful wages and giving minimal benefits) is OK.

That's a big problem with this industry and why it's going deeper and deeper in the toilet: people who are either 1. completely ignorant of how journalism works, 2. greedy or 3. both are making the decisions. They think that one person should do 70 hours of work in 40 hours -- and don't you go overtime or you're not doing you're job. As a result the product suffers, and that turns off readers. Cause and effect.

It's gone beyond do-your-job-and-you'll-be-fine, because 1. that's not true and 2. the prevailing attitude of "you're expendable" is helping to nail print journalism's coffin.

And just for the record, since you bring up capitalism, I assume you're familiar with Adam Smith. His theory is considered the blueprint for capitalism, yet his theory was a capitalist society is only as strong as its weakest link. I'm not sure where this idea of firing well-trained, qualified people simply because someone else will work for cheaper fits into that model.

Those running the show can continue to believe people can be fired for whatever reason, and wages can be slashed, and benefits cut. And because of that, educated people will go into different fields. And the industry will plummet further. Cause and effect.

 

Canyonero, my problem is that you state these things like it's happening at every paper in the country, bar none. And there's a wide, wide range out there in terms of employer-employee relations. Don't paint the whole picture with the same brush.

 

Yeah, I hear you. I certainly don't mean to paint the whole picture that way, I'm saying more hypothetically if more and more publication companies go that direction.

 

True no one is made to, and I've had the fortune of being treated well in my short career. And my point is just what you said: if good, hard working people are treated badly, they'll simply leave, which isn't good for the industry.

 

UPDATE: Strike looming
http://willdo.philadelphiaweekly.com/archives/2006/11/number_of_old_p.html