Smooth sailingUnlike ’99, Guild and management are poised for new contract December 5,
2007 6:09:18 PM
In sharp contrast to the divisive four-year labor dispute that came to a rapid close in late 2003, ProJo management and the Providence Newspaper Guild have been getting along like the best of friends in the years since. And with the current Guild contract due to expire at the end of this month, union officials believe that a new three-year pact will be settled imminently.
“At this time, we are cautiously optimistic that we will have an agreement in place,” Guild administrator Tim Schick said last week. The union represents about 400 reporters, photographers, and other workers at the Journal, and negotiations have been ongoing since October. (The Guild has more details at its Web site, riguild.org.)
Unlike the sharp-elbowed statements made by Guild members during the bygone labor dispute, when they accused Belo-backed managers of trying to break the union, an amicable tone has come to characterize management-labor relations. In explaining the change, Schick says, “Both sides beat each other up pretty well and no one wants to go through that again. No one wins from a fight.”
Guild president John Hill says, “When we reached the deal in 2003, we shook hands and they said they wanted to change the relationship. I said that will take time . . . and I have to give them credit. They have been very inclusive with us. There have been issues that, before 2003 we would have been in court, which have been settled with phone calls.”
Of course, when the newspaper industry is gripped by a state of widespread anxiety it helps to have everyone pulling in the same direction.
And considering the difficulties of the business, several observers see Belo’s recent move to break off its newspapers into a separate company, leaving the corporation’s debt with its more-profitable broadcast operation, as a good thing.
“I have looked at this thing and for now, I’m taking it at face value,” says Hill, who sees it as a way to better insulate Belo’s newspapers from the earnings expectations of Wall Street — which have sparked deep cuts at many publicly traded media companies.
Schick offers a similar view. “I think it takes account of the reality that newspapers are no longer the type of property that will generate” profit margins approaching 30 percent a year, he says. He says the move will “allow the print section to [operate] under less market pressure,” thereby helping to protect Belo’s newspapers, which include the flagship Dallas Morning News.
While the split could also make Belo’s newspaper company the target of a leveraged buyout, such an effort would likely fail, Schick believes, since Belo CEO Robert Decherd — whose family has long ties to the Morning News — and the corporation’s board of directors control more than 80 percent of Belo’s voting shares.
Although Rupert Murdoch’s acquisition of the Wall Street Journal shows how quickly things can change, Belo, as Schick notes, “has steadfastly said that the [Providence] Journal is not for sale.”
Industry analyst John Morton suspects that Belo’s creation of a separate newspaper company, rather than making a sale more likely, indicates that the Decherd family will eventually “just take that private, and in the long run, that would be a benefit to the newspaper operation.”
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