St. Paul Guild

The Newspaper Guild at the St. Paul Pioneer Press

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Welcome to the internet home of the Newspaper Guild unit representing union workers at Minnesota's oldest daily newspaper.

There are about 380 of us now working for MediaNews, a privately held newspaper company that acquired the paper and three other Knight Ridder publications from the McClatchy Company, after McClatchy bought its San Jose-based rival and broke it up.

We are one of seven Guild newspaper units in Minnesota, including our colleagues and rivals at the Minneapolis-based Star Tribune. In St. Paul, we are currently working under a contract that dates to 2002 and expires in 2007. There are many fewer of us now than when we negotiated that contract, after a round of buyouts and layoffs in late 2006 and January 2007.

It's a tough business and getting tougher every day.

Read here about our work to keep the Pioneer Press an asset to the community, an independent voice and a provider of good jobs in our region.

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Wages and retirement

Neither the company nor the Guild has yet presented a specific pay-rate schedule. Wage details typically become a topic later in the bargaining process.

What the company proposes:

Create a new wage scale for future hires that reaches its highest required minimum after three years, not six. While actual weekly wages have not yet been proposed, the company’s proposal, if applied to the current pay schedule, would mean a new reporter would reach a top minimum of $863 per week, or $44,876 per year, rather than $1,240 per week, or $64,480 per year. For a new circulation district supervisor making top night scale, the minimum would fall from $1,261 per week, or $65,572 per year, to $899 per week, or $46,748 per year.
Eliminate daily overtime and instead pay overtime only after 40 hours in a week
Eliminate “call back” overtime, which calls for overtime for employees called in to work on scheduled days off.
Freeze future accrual of pension benefits.
Cut mileage reimbursement to 35 cents per mile, from the IRS-determined level, which is now 48.5 cents per mile

Concerns with company proposal:

While managers could choose pay new hires more than the proposed wage minimums, the company is also seeking the ability to eliminate merit pay unilaterally and to take factors other than seniority into account when making layoffs. Even if you assume current managers would apply these provisions fairly, without contract protection, there is nothing that would prevent future managers from abusing this discretion. Together, these provisions could allow managers to unilaterally eliminate higher-paid senior staffers while erasing the merit pay of others.
There is an apparent conflict between the company’s proposed policy of paying overtime past 40 hours in one week and its desire to eliminate “call back” overtime. Time worked on a Saturday would be in excess of 40 hours in a week, apparently triggering overtime, although it also would be on a scheduled day off, which would trigger straight time. It is not likely the company would resolve this conflict in employees’ favor.

What the Guild proposes:

Wages (to be specified later) that reflect higher costs-of-living and the increased duties that followed staff cuts.
A 401(k) match policy to bolster retirement savings

July 12, 2007