{"id":21978,"date":"2018-03-28T08:32:36","date_gmt":"2018-03-28T14:32:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lastbestnews.com\/site\/?p=21978"},"modified":"2018-03-28T08:32:36","modified_gmt":"2018-03-28T14:32:36","slug":"fledgling-newspaper-union-gets-mea-mft-support","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/2018\/03\/fledgling-newspaper-union-gets-mea-mft-support\/","title":{"rendered":"Fledgling newspaper union gets MEA-MFT support"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Union\"<\/a>

Employees of the Missoula Independent are hoping to form a union.<\/p><\/div>\n

Efforts by staffers at the Missoula Independent to organize under Lee Enterprises gained the support of the state\u2019s largest labor union on Tuesday, with the MEA-MFT saying it is watching the process closely.<\/p>\n

But in a letter to advertisers last week, Matt Gibosn, the paper\u2019s general manager, who also oversees the Missoulian, called the organizing effort a \u201cnaive and extremely shortsighted\u201d approach, and said it wasn\u2019t in the staff\u2019s \u2014 or the weekly newspaper\u2019s \u2014best interest.<\/p>\n

Staffers at the Independent\u00a0filed their petition<\/a>\u00a0last week with the National Labor Relations Board and are waiting for a response from Lee Enterprises. The corporation owns five other papers in Montana, including the Missoulian and Billings Gazette.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are watching because we believe working people everywhere should have the unfettered right and opportunity to organize into unions and bargain collectively with their employers,\u201d MEA-MFT President Eric Feaver said\u00a0Tuesday. \u201cWe urge Lee Enterprises to step back from anti-union interference and let the employees decide entirely for themselves if they want to be (in a) union or not.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Indy staff\u2019s effort to organize continues a yearlong saga that began last April when Gibson, then the owner of the Independent, sold the publication to Lee Enterprises.<\/p>\n

\n
\n

Gibson, who now serves as the general manager of the Indy, the Missoulian and the Ravalli Republic, said he made the decision to sell in order to tap into Lee\u2019s technical capabilities amid sweeping changes in advertising and marketing.<\/p>\n

While Gibson hasn\u2019t returned calls seeking comment on efforts by his staff to unionize, he sent a letter to advertisers last Thursday to \u201cprovide a fuller picture\u201d of the labor movement. Though he understands the anxieties of the Indy staff, he said, the effort to organize is naive and shortsighted.<\/p>\n

\"CapreAir_Variable\"<\/a><\/div><\/div>\u201cIt\u2019s not in the best interest of the staff, the paper, the community, or the owner, Lee Enterprises,\u201d he wrote. \u201cWhen it\u2019s all said and done, the organizing effort amounts to a dramatic gesture to take some sort of principled stand, but there\u2019s no substance to it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Gibson, who owned the Indy for 20 years, said the product remains part of the community, and he stated his commitment to ensure its survival, even as other free weeklies fold.<\/p>\n

However, he added, the Indy has been losing money, and it continues to do so under Lee. He said the product has persisted largely due to his own personal commitment to the paper.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor the last 11 months, Lee Enterprises has carried the weight,\u201d he wrote. \u201cDespite the very real financial issues, Lee\u2019s treatment of the Indy and its staff since acquiring it last April has been generous, patient, and wholly above reproach. The pressures on the business will persist whether the staff unionizes or not.\u201d<\/p>\n

The timing of the Indy\u2019s petition to organize comes as the staff prepares to move in with the Missoulian at its office on Higgins Avenue. That, combined with Lee\u2019s pattern of cost-cutting measures, such as staff buy-outs and layoffs, has the Indy employees feeling anxious and underrepresented.<\/p>\n

Last week, several Indy staffers said they\u2019re looking to gain a voice in the paper\u2019s future \u2014 and that of their jobs \u2014 as the Indy and Missoulian merge under the same roof.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is something that can help us have a voice in the process, rather than just having things happen to us,\u201d Indy reporter Susan Elizabeth Shepard said. \u201cWe\u2019d like to take part in the decisions that affect the paper. As with any changes that happen to the Independent, having some kind of bargaining power gives us, at least, a say.\u201d<\/p>\n

In his letter to advertisers, Gibson called that perspective as a misperception.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe business challenges confronting us are fundamental, and the union cannot solve them,\u201d he said. \u201cNor will union representatives give staff more influence over the paper\u2019s editorial approach. The direction, tone and quality of a newsroom are the responsibility of the publisher and editor.\u201d<\/p>\n

In an email sent\u00a0Tuesday, the Missoula Independent Union said it was working to stand up for its members. One Indy staffer said Tuesday than an election has been certified and a vote will be held on April 6.<\/p>\n

If 51 percent of non-management staff vote yes, then the union will be formed and collective bargaining could begin.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt didn\u2019t take long for Lee Enterprises to display aggressive opposition to this union drive,\u201d the Missoula Independent Union said. \u201cOver the last week, a variety of pressure tactics have been utilized by upper management to show their displeasure with our desire to have a union. But we\u2019re standing up for ourselves.\u201d<\/p>\n

This article originally appeared on\u00a0Missoula Current<\/a>, an independent online newspaper, of which\u00a0Martin Kidston is the founding editor.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/article>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Efforts by staffers at the Missoula Independent to organize under Lee Enterprises gained the support of the state\u2019s largest labor union on Tuesday, with the MEA-MFT saying it is watching the process closely.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":97,"featured_media":21979,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[1864,305,5747,6601,971],"class_list":["post-21978","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-eric-feaver","tag-lee-enterprises","tag-matt-gibson","tag-mea-mft","tag-missoula-independent","prominence-top-story"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21978","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/97"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21978"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21978\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21980,"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21978\/revisions\/21980"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/21979"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21978"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21978"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21978"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}