Honolulu Bloggers’ Strike Gets Management Back to Table

[Omaha Steve]

Source: AFL-CIO News Blog

Bloggers write the news, but it’s not every day they become the news.

In what may be the first-ever blog strike, writers at The Honolulu Advertiser, members of The Newspaper Guild-CWA Local 39117, got management to return to the bargaining table by refusing to post online blogs, including the blogs on an especially popular sports site. Many of the writers left messages for readers explaining their absence from blog duty, which is voluntary. Reporters, photographers and artists withheld bylines and credit lines from the newspaper’s print edition.

The strike worked. Coupled with an overwhelming strike vote by the six unions at the paper, the byline/blog strike pushed management to back down from its “last and final” contract offer and agree to new talks, which began last Thursday.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f-VLbpq6X4c

The workers were protesting the lack of a fair contract offer by the newspaper. Employees say the company’s offer was an insult. The Advertiser, which is owned by Gannett, the largest newspaper company in the country, is demanding big increases in the Honolulu workers’ out-of-pocket health care costs. Coupled with a paltry 1 percent pay raise and a one-time 1.5 percent bonus, management’s offer would set workers back by about $150 a month, union leaders say.

Read more: http://blog.aflcio.org/2008/03/08/honolulu-bloggers-strike-gets-management-back-to-table/

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[msongs]

1. gannett's hawaii news papers are pretty much a newspaper monopoly over there nt

[proud2bamerican2]

2. Not on Oahu

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