After 12 months in office, I find myself proud and honored to be serving a membership which, in my view, is the hardest working, most dedicated and most loyal workforce of any company within the newspaper industry.

While all of you -- and you are the Union-- have dedicated all of your working hours to help keep the Globe a successful enterprise, I have also witnessed a growing trend at the Globe that needs our utmost attention.

That trend is an increasing number of key issues that continues to erode our jobs and threatens our very survival as a unionized workforce. And, as we know, this negative trend is fueled by an ever-increasing animosity toward us from our employers -- the New York Times and the Boston Globe.

Now, more than ever, we must band together in unity -- and unity is our strength -- as we face perhaps one of the most difficult and dangerous times in the newspaper industry‘s recent history. It’s a time when our union, as well as other unions at the Globe, is under intense attack from the Globe and Times corporate ownerships.

With your years of hard work, often going beyond the call of duty, the company owes you the dignity and respect that you have earned. Once again, it is time to demand that dignity and respect.

As we are now in a new round of negotiations, it is important to remember what has transpired since the last contract to understand how vital the next contract will be to our future, and what we can expect from Globe management during our upcoming fight for a fair and reasonable bargaining agreement.

In the last 10 months, we have seen our entire maintenance department outsourced, and a general buyout along with two Streamline to Grow programs that have diminished our workforce. As a result of all these reduction programs, we have sadly witnessed the exit of nearly 150 of our Union brothers and sisters throughout the BNG.

Among the reasons Globe management gives for its workforce reduction program is declining revenue, abetted by declining circulation. We do not argue that both declines are occurring, but we do take serious issue with the methods they use to reverse them.

For example, simple math tells us that giving large bonuses to Globe managers, such as a reported $1.3 million bonus to publisher Richard Gilman only adds to, rather than alleviate, the Globe’s declining revenue. Gilman denies that amount, asserting that his real bonus is possibly only a quarter of that $1.3 million. Even if that is true, that means he received at least $300,000 -- money that could have been used to save the jobs of most of the outsourced maintenance workers.

And the hiring of a new Globe president, a number of vice presidents and senior managements, which has sharply increased company expenditures, are more examples of fiscal irresponsibility that contributes to the decline in company revenue.

To make matters worse, Globe management has committed numerous violations of the very contract it had agreed to uphold.

Consultants and contractors illegally performing Guild work is rampart throughout the Globe buildings. As we fight these violations with every legal means at our disposal, we are also reminded of management’s lack of ethics and credibility from the last contract.

During those negotiations, company representatives stated that they wanted the outsourcing language, but did not see a need to use it for the foreseeable future.

Their honesty on this subject was short-lived. In only fourteen months after ratification of the contract in September 2004, maintenance was outsourced.

To further understand the company’s callousness toward its workforce, the outsourcing decision was announced to Union representatives two days before Thanksgiving. Before we left that meeting and returned to our desks, the publisher had already sent his outsourcing message throughout the building in a cold, insensitive manner -- via e-mail.

As we get ready to fight for a fair contract at the bargaining table, we must also get ready to fight the company’s efforts to further eradicate our jobs, erode our salaries, and ultimately destroy our will to survive this onslaught.
It is time for us to say, loud and clear, that “Enough is Enough.“

We will get as vocal, as active and as public as humanly possible to convey to the Times and the Globe that we will fight any and all contract violations and company transgressions with every means at our disposal.

To make our fight successful, both at the table and in the workplace, I ask for your full support. When we have membership meetings, we need you to be there. When we have rallies, we need you to be there. And when we have a day for wearing our Union T-shirts, we need you to wear them.

Over the many years of its existence, your Union has fought for and gained for you industry-leading wages, pension, reasonable health car rates, and dignity and respect in the workplace. With the company constantly working to take away these hard-fought gains, we recognize that we have much work ahead of us in upcoming contract negotiations.

Among the issues we will be facing at the table involve outsourcing language, pensions, wages, health care, and ethics policies on business and journalism.

Your BNG Executive Committee is fully committed to bringing you a fair and reasonable contract. To achieve this goal, it will take not only the hard work of our Negotiating Committee, but a strong, unified membership that is fully committed and determined to stand with us as we fight for a return to fairness at the Globe.

Since the day I arrived at the Boston Globe some 26 years ago on a college internship, not a day has passed that I have not been proud and honored to work with you, as a Union member and as an employee of our Boston Globe. I believe we still produce one of the very best newspapers in the country, despite employer efforts to diminish our ranks and product quality.

I look forward in the coming weeks and months to speaking and meeting with each and every member, to hear your ideas and suggestions to help make us a more effective Union at the bargaining table and in every department.

We will not be alone when we begin a new round of negotiations. The TNG, CWA, our union brothers and sisters in the Globe Pressroom and Mailroom, Boston political and business leaders, the Massachusetts AFL-CIO, Jobs with Justice, Boston Firefighters Union, and US Senators Edward M. Kennedy and John F. Kerry have all pledged their ongoing vocal and active support of our Union as we fight for a fair and decent contract.

With this support, and with the strong unity within our Union, we can achieve a collective bargaining agreement, and a workplace, that will give all of us hope for a brighter and more secure future. Together, we can reach that goal.

Daniel B. Totten
President, Boston Newspaper Guild
BNG - TNG/CWA Local 31245

June 5, 2006