http://www.mercurynews.com/breakingnews/ci_8696570By George Avalos
STAFF WRITER
Article Launched: 03/25/2008 07:03:06 PM PDT
The owner of the Contra Costa Times, Oakland Tribune and dozens of other newspapers in the Bay Area acted legally when it withdrew recognition of the Newspaper Guild as the bargaining agent for newsroom employees following a consolidation of news operations, an official with a federal agency said.
An executive with California Newspapers Partnership, the three-company group that owns the papers, said he was pleased with the ruling from a division of the National Labor Relations Board.
A Newspaper Guild official said the union would forge ahead with efforts to organize newsroom employees and that the NLRB ruling could eventually help the labor group.
The NLRB recommendation came in response to charges from the union that Denver-based MediaNews Group Inc. and its partners acted illegally when it ceased to recognize the union. The newspaper owners withdrew recognition of the Newspaper Guild in August because the newly consolidated newsroom operations consisted of more non-union members than union members. After the consolidation, about 130 of the 300-plus newsroom employees were unionized workers.
"The employer did not violate the (National Labor Relations) Act because the historical bargaining unit ceased to be an appropriate unit after the employer consolidated unit employees into a larger group of other employees," Barry Kearney, an associate general counsel in the NLRB's advice division, wrote in a March 19 memo to the NLRB's regional director.
The non-union employees in the consolidated newsroom operation were primarily from the Contra Costa Times and other papers that were part of Contra Costa Newspapers. The union employees were primarily from the Oakland Tribune and other papers that had been part of Alameda Newspaper Group.
FULL story at link.
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