All-Star raffle at June 7 membership meeting

            Guild members can win two tickets to the Major League Baseball All-Star Game or to other All-Star events as part of a raffle to be conducted at the local's Wednesday, June 7, quarterly membership meeting.
            A guest speaker from the Toledo Guild will provide an update on how our brothers and sisters at The Blade are faring in their battle against the Blocks and their union-busting law firm, King & Ballow. As most of you know, the Blocks hired notorious newspaper union-buster Bob Ballow to lead the company's negotiations at The Blade, where the Guild contract expired March 23.

Because it's such a hot topic these days, we'll also gauge opinion about the Guild's role in online work by our members on post-gazette.com.
            Everyone in attendance at the 12:30 p.m. and 5:30 p.m. sessions will receive a ticket for a chance at the raffle for the All-Star game and event tickets. The four events include the July 11 All-Star Game, Fanfest, Futures game and Home Run Derby.

A fifth prize of a commemorative baseball autographed by All-Star Pirates left-fielder Jason Bay also will be given away.

There’s one condition for the raffle – if you are unable to use the tickets, they must be returned to the Guild so they can be given away to another member.
            Online work at newspapers around the country has taken on a new sense of urgency as publishers scramble for ways to bring in additional revenue and provide more creative content to our readers. There's a battle under way at all the Guild papers nationwide over jurisdiction, the merging of different job classifications and policing of work done during off hours by union members. We'll have a short discussion about the topic as part of a more thorough examination of this topic later this summer.
            In addition to these scintillating topics, there will be food and beverages available at the meeting, so stop over the first-floor meeting room of the United Steelworkers Building on June 7.

Negotiations in limbo
            While negotiations are moving slowly in Toledo, talks have come to a standstill in Pittsburgh.
            The Post-Gazette's Unity Council, composed of the leaders of the 10 unions in the building, told the company in April in no uncertain terms that the regressive and insulting proposals given to the unions earlier this year were unacceptable. The proposals, no doubt written by lawyers from union-busting law firm Seyfarth Shaw of Chicago, are clearly designed to eliminate union representation of Post-Gazette employees.
            Unless the company decides to revise its proposals, the unions will not sit down again at the bargaining table until the fall, when required by each contract.

Meanwhile, mobilization activities by the Guild and the other unions will ramp up this summer as we prepare to do battle with a company that seems intent on a war. The PG unions met a few weeks ago in Cleveland with the unions at The Blade and have pledged support for the battles in our respective cities.

Guild scholarship winners

            The Guild Scholarship Committee has awarded $1,500 scholarships to Christina Praskovich, a journalism major at Point Park University who is an academic intern at the PG this summer, and Sarah Vaccarelli, a journalism/communications major at Duquesne University. This year's committee was Jim Heinrich, chairman, David Fink, David Guo, Pat Peters, Kristin Synowka and Kurt Weber.

Point Park case still pending

            The Guild is still waiting for a decision from the U.S. Court of Appeals in Washington, D.C., in its ongoing case to represent 70 fulltime professors at Point Park University in Pittsburgh.

            It’s been three years since the union began a successful organizing campaign that culminated in the overwhelming vote in June 2004 for Guild representation among the university faculty, the first such unit in CWA.

Unfortunately, the college has refused since that time to bargain with the union. The National Labor Relations Board took over the case upon the college’s refusal to bargain and upheld the Guild’s position at every level.

            Point Park officials appealed the NLRB’s final administrative ruling to the federal appeals court last year. Lawyers from the NLRB, the college and the AFL-CIO, appearing on behalf of the Guild, argued their respective positions Jan. 17 before a three-judge panel, all Republican appointees. We’ve been waiting since then for a ruling.

If Point Park loses again, the college could ask for reconsideration from the full circuit court of nine judges. If the college is unsuccessful there, the next stop is the U.S. Supreme Court.