The Eugene Newspaper Guild voted Tuesday to accept a five-year contract proposal extended by The Register-Guard management by a vote of 60 percent to 40 percent, guild President Adele Berlinski said. The new contract will be in place by Friday.
The last contract expired at midnight April 30, 1999, and guild members have been working without a contract for more than three years, according to the guild’s Web site.
“I thought it would be an overwhelming ‘yes’ vote,” said Berlinski, who leads a guild of approximately 150 members representing advertising, circulation, technical, newsroom and office workers. “It was a lot closer than I thought.”
Register-Guard spokeswoman Cynthia Walden refused repeated requests by the Emerald for an interview.
Berlinski said she had reservations with several aspects of the new contract, including a new policy that prohibits the union from using the company’s e-mail system, one prohibiting workers from wearing union insignia when dealing with the public and the installationof a drug-testing procedure.
With the new e-mail policy, members of the guild will have to use personal e-mail, office bulletin boards or newsletters to communicate with each other.
“There are some things that really bother me about (the contract), but I’m glad this is over after three and a half years,” Berlinski said.
One feature of the new contract that helped it to pass was newspaper management’s removal of a bargaining waiver, Berlinski said. Former proposals contained a provision that would have restricted the union’s right to bargain mid-contract.
Berlinski added that the new contract contains provisions for a signing bonus of $1,000 per union member and yearly raises for most workers between 2 percent and 2.5 percent during the next five years.
Berlinski blamed the three-year negotiations on Attorney L. Michael Zinser, whom she called out-of-state and anti-union. She added that guild members were so incensed by the stymied bargaining process that the union filed nine unfair labor practice charges against the newspaper.
Prodding from the National Labor Relations Board prompted newspaper management to back off several demands and present the guild with an acceptable contract proposal, Berlinski said.
Berlinski also credited the community in helping the guild during the past three years.
“The community has been phenomenal,” she said. “They have been very supportive.”