A crowd of close to 100 people rallied in front of The Register-Guard building on Chad Drive on Tuesday evening to protest against labor disputes at the newspaper.
“We are striving for working men and women — that is what it’s about,” said John Mullin, a Printers Union representative.
Members of the Printers Union, Eugene Newspaper Guild members, distribution workers and pressmen organized the rally to draw attention to the second anniversary of guild workers working without a contract. The contract with the newspaper expired on May 1, 1999. The organization represents 155 reporters, ad salespeople and circulation workers. Part of the guild’s contract demands include pay raises, advertising commissions and health care coverage.
” The community is waking up to the fact that owners aren’t running the paper the way they used to,” said Lance Robertson, chief bargainer for the Eugene Newspaper Guild.
No one could be reached at The Register-Guard for comment. However, in the past, Cynthia Walden, director of human resources for the newspaper, has explained that management wishes to handle the contract issue in mediation and not in the media.
County, state and federal government representatives spoke at the gathering. Their words echoed out over the crowd from speakers set on an 18-wheeler emblazoned with a Teamsters Union logo.
“In this kind of dispute, we need to make sure we support the workers and that the community stands up and supports them,” said Pete Sorensen, Lane County Commissioner.
State Sen. Tony Corcoran, D-Cottage Grove, read a statement of support for the newspaper employees on behalf of seven state legislators from Lane County, and a spokesperson for U.S. Rep. Peter DeFazio also presented a statement supporting the guild. The crowd also included employees not in the guild — distribution workers — who tried to unionize in the past.
Sixty distribution workers began organizing a union at The Register-Guard last year. Teamsters Union 206 representative Stefan Ostrach said more than 60 percent of distribution employees signed up before Register-Guard management stepped in with unfair labor practices.
“They fired a woman, held captive-audience meetings, solicited grievances directly and gave big raises. That killed it, right there,” he said.
The National Labor Relations Board ruled recently that The Register-Guard had committed pervasive and unfair labor practices against the distributors during the union organizing.
People in the crowd chanted along with organizers at the rally, saying “Zinser, go home,” a reference to a Tennessee lawyer hired by the newspaper to bargain with employees. Pressmen, who print the paper at The Register-Guard, have been negotiating with the owners since their contract expired on March 31st.
Demonstrators lifted white signs with protest messages into the air. Various union representatives held banners or flags aloft, including Head Start workers, the United Brotherhood of Carpenters and the UAW National Writers Union. Writers Union member Sally Sheklow spoke in support of the newspaper employees’ contract demands.
“We support writers being paid a living wage for what they do,” she said.