Rob Parker controversy

Well, he could have just not crossed the line and took a temporary job elsewhere.

 

Angola the same thing could be said about people who crossed picket lines in Seattle, Philadelphia, Detroit. It's a personal choice.

 

Yes.

I don't believe in crossing picket lines.

 

I understand and respect your feeling Angola. There are some instances where guys are more or less forced to cross. I can think of on case where a guy was told that if he didn't cross, there was a good chance that he would loose his beat once everything settled. The guy eventually crossed and soon left the paper for a better gig elsewhere.

 

I still don't understand the union representing someone who doesn't pay dues. Where's the incentive to join if you can get the benefits with paying for them?

 

You mean companies put pressure on striking workers? I never would have thought that.

 

Question and comment:

-- After the Newspaper Guild brings you up on charges, if you're found "guilty" of those charges, what happens? Do you have to go to Guild jail?

-- What I have always heard, and what the unions I've been a member of have acknowledged, is that writing assignments -- such as a column vs. a beat vs. G.A. -- are completely under the control of management. Something only qualified as a "demotion" if they went after some portion of your paycheck, but the unions had no say over how someone was deployed. You get lucky to get a column, you can get unlucky and lose it. Or ask a dumbass question and hurry along the process.

 

A reporter who gets reassigned to the press room has a grievance. A pressman whose paycheck is whacked by 25 percent has a grievance. As demotions go, columnist at a large metro paper to GA at same metro paper doesn't strike me as a big one.
There's only one way I buy the argument that Parker was free from discipline for what he said in a "freelance" TV gig: if the TV show makes no mention of his relationship to the newspaper.

 

Neither do I.

And drip, I wasn't singling him out. I'm just saying it is interesting that you go against unions and the unions back you.

 

His "resignation" made the AP wire.

 

Yep, can't seem to do much or anything about the dozens/hundreds of Guild members in good standing in his local losing jobs, but when non-member and one-time scab Rob Parker gets a richly-deserved and probably overdue boot in the ass, all of a sudden there's action.

 

Well, exactly - wonder how all those dues-paying common folk feel now?