Inky, Daily News employees authorize strike

http://www.philadelphiaweekly.com/view.php?id=13333

“We’ve been asked to plan for as many as 150 people to be laid off,” says Inquirer managing editor Anne Gordon. That figure represents more than a third of the newspaper’s editorial staff.

 

Holy shit.

 

http://www.philadelphiaweekly.com/view.php?id=13435

The Newspaper Guild of Philadelphia has 3,000 brand-new cardboard signs bearing the word "STRIKE" in red letters, all stacked up and ready to go.

According to an open letter the Guild wrote this week to the community, talks with the management of Philadelphia Media Holdings continue to proceed slowly.
...
The Guild is also set to start airing new radio spots featuring some of the newspapers' best-known writers, including Phil Sheridan, Tom Ferrick, Monica Yant Kinney, George Anastasia, Stu Bykofsky and Elmer Smith.

 

When was the last time a strike actually benefitted the strikers?

 

when was the last time laying down and getting porked by management benefited employees?

 

I don't know all the details of the Philly situation, but is management's proposal really the result of a desire to "pork" workers? Or does it arise from a catastrophic blunder on the part of Tierney and co., who overpaid for the papers and need to cut costs? My impression on this has been the latter, though of course that could just be posturing by Tierney and friends.
Either way, it seems like a really bad situation.

 

I don't buy their line, STL. They KNEW what they were getting into when they bought the paper. McClatchy opened the books. There were no secrets. Tierney knew exactly what was going on with the numbers; I recall him alluding to that ("we know what we're getting ourselves into," or something along those lines) at the press conference.

 

http://willdo.philadelphiaweekly.com/archives/2006/11/newspaper_guild.html

Newspaper Guild press release:

 

We'll miss the dear old tab.

Yes, we will.

 

Evidently, that wasn't the worst thing he could have called her.

 

One must wonder whether the union now pines for Lean Dean buying the paper. After all, they would've known what they were getting into right off the bat.

 

Non-editorial employees are prepared to cross reporters' and editors' picket lines.

I can understand the other unions not wanting to strike, but wouldn't they be asking us to honor their picket lines? I have no stance on this one; just really curious.