Newspaper Guild

Newspaper Guild officials Friday called for a subscription boycott of the San Diego Union and Tribune to protest the lack of progress in a lengthy contract dispute with the newspaper company. The call for subscription cancellations came during a noisy noontime rally in a Stardust Hotel banquet room, where several speakers, including Hollywood celebrity Ed Asner and United Farm Workers President Cesar Chavez, verbally attacked Union-Tribune publisher Helen Copley.

Labor unions still tack notices on bulletin boards and hand out fliers at plant entrances, but many are quickly realizing that sending e-mail through a company's computer network is the best way to reach workers. A dispute between the Washington Post and its employees' newspaper guild could determine whether companies have to allow such electronic campaigning. The guild filed an unfair labor practice charge against the Post on Dec.

Press-Telegram reporters, maintenance workers and other employees have rejected the Long Beach company's latest contract offer by a 95-28 vote. Union officials said they object to a proposed clause that would prohibit job actions, such as boycotts or strikes, that could hurt the company economically while the contract is in effect.

It's a story too good, too sad, too deliciously poignant, to pass up: Three days before Christmas. Paralyzed man lies in hospital bed, recovering from spinal surgery. Vicious windstorm sweeps city. Dog waiting for man at home, man's longtime companion, flees his kennel in the storm and disappears. Any editor worth his salt would have one reporter at the paralyzed man's bedside, another out documenting the search for the dog. The Seattle Union Record figures it can go that one better.

It's a story too good, too sad, too deliciously poignant, to pass up: Three days before Christmas. Paralyzed man lies in hospital bed, recovering from spinal surgery. Vicious windstorm sweeps city. Dog waiting for man at home, man's longtime companion, flees his kennel in the storm and disappears. Any editor worth his salt would have one reporter at the paralyzed man's bedside, another out documenting the search for the dog. The Seattle Union Record figures it can go that one better.

Hollywood Park formalized its previously announced agreement to buy casino operator Boomtown for about $186.6 million in stock and assumed debt. . . . The Detroit Free Press declared an impasse in its negotiations with the Newspaper Guild, ruling its newsroom an open shop and putting its last contract offer into effect.

Union Strikes at Newspaper: Newspaper Guild members went on strike at the New York Post, saying Rupert Murdoch's efforts to save the paper threatened their jobs. The newspaper is being operated by Murdoch, whose News Corp. expects to complete a $25-million purchase of the Post by the end of September. The union opposed a plan by Murdoch to allow a four-month period during which he can fire any employee without regard to seniority.

Both of Seattle's major daily newspapers were locked in a strike Tuesday that threatened to paralyze news operations, production and delivery at the opening of the crucial holiday advertising season. "I've got a very empty newsroom full of managers right now," Ken Bunting, editor of the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, said Tuesday morning. "I'm going to have to see if I remember how to write."

About 120 employees of the Long Beach Press-Telegram have been terminated as the sale of the 100-year newspaper to Dean Singleton's MediaNews Group was completed this week, union officials said. Employees asked to stay on were offered salaries that are at least 21% lower, said Linda Cearly, a Newspaper Guild/Communications Workers of America representative.

The Los Angeles Newspaper Guild has filed a lawsuit in federal court accusing the owners of the Long Beach Press-Telegram of failing to honor the newspaper's union contract. The union also accuses Knight-Ridder Inc., which is selling the newspaper to Denver media magnate William Dean Singleton, and Press-Telegram Publications of trying to raid the employees' pension plan. The lawsuit, filed late Tuesday in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles, doesn't name Singleton or Garden State Newspapers Inc.

Hollywood Park formalized its previously announced agreement to buy casino operator Boomtown for about $186.6 million in stock and assumed debt. . . . The Detroit Free Press declared an impasse in its negotiations with the Newspaper Guild, ruling its newsroom an open shop and putting its last contract offer into effect.

A sign on the Detroit Pizza Factory, a hole-in-the-wall lunch spot downtown, shows where its loyalties lie as a strike against the city's two newspapers enters its second week: "We Do Not Serve Scabs." The blunt statement of support is meant to warm the spirits of about 2,500 striking drivers, reporters, mailers and pressmen who took to the picket lines July 13 when talks on a new three-year contract failed.

Union Strikes at Newspaper: Newspaper Guild members went on strike at the New York Post, saying Rupert Murdoch's efforts to save the paper threatened their jobs. The newspaper is being operated by Murdoch, whose News Corp. expects to complete a $25-million purchase of the Post by the end of September. The union opposed a plan by Murdoch to allow a four-month period during which he can fire any employee without regard to seniority.

The New York Post's union leaders sat down again with reluctant owner Rupert Murdoch's representatives after putting together a new proposal to revive the financially strapped newspaper. The union leaders reached the agreement during a meeting Sunday, said Harry Leykis, chairman of the Newspaper Guild unit that represents editorial employees. The unions appeared willing to grant Murdoch's demand for $6.2 million in savings, according to Gov. Mario M.