From the AFL-CIO TAKE ACTION site
Thursday May 31, 2012
Dear Bill,
I’m writing on behalf of the Dayton Newspaper Guild, the union that represents editorial employees at the Dayton Daily News as well as the copy desk that assembles all of Cox Media Group’s newspapers in southwest Ohio, including dailies in Springfield, Hamilton and Middletown. Our journalists are also providing stories for WHIO Radio and Channel 7, WHIO-TV.
I wanted to let you know what is going on in our newsroom and how it affects the community and you.
We are bargaining with the company for a contract, the first since 1986. We have gone without raises for four of the past five years, while working harder with a smaller staff and helping the company merge its operations with radio and television. But while the company has shored up its profitability and Sunday circulation is growing for the first time in years, it is now demanding the ability to outsource work and lay off professional journalists.
This will eliminate middle-class jobs in our community, a community that deserves a media outlet that provides strong local coverage by trained and experienced journalists, not amateurs and hobbyists. The desire to replace experienced journalists with cheaper, untrained labor is bad for workers and it’s bad for you.
Click here to tell Cox Media to be fair to its journalists.
The company also wants to be able to transfer editorial workers anywhere in a 50-mile radius – for any period of time. So workers would be transferred between Dayton, Springfield and the Northern Cincinnati area, which includes Middletown and Hamilton, with no extra pay. This would be done at will, regardless of the reporters’ or photographers’ experience or knowledge of those communities. Again, this would be bad for the workers, and bad for you.
We have been bargaining for several months now and have received few meaningful attempts at compromise from the company on these critical issues. We are weighing all options now, including boycotts. That’s where you come in.
Please let Cox Media Group know that it should treat its employees fairly; that it should do it’s part to keep middle-class jobs in Ohio; that it should value what veteran journalists provide; and that it should respect the differences between the communities it is charged with serving.
Click here to send an e-mail to Julia Wallace, the vice president who oversees all Cox Media operations in southwest Ohio.
Feel free to add your own comments. Please help us in our struggle to get a fair contract for our journalists so we can continue to serve our communities.
Sincerely,
Lou Grieco
President, Dayton Newspaper Guild