"It\'s simply a move to both break our union and to discourage other groups that might be considering organizing," said Pete Miller, a senior designer who has worked nine years at the Star Tribune.

In May 2006, Miller was part of a group of 30 Star Tribune graphic design staff who voted to join Local 1M of the Graphics Communications Conference/International Brotherhood of Teamsters (GCC/IBT).

The company agreed to the union\'s request to merge the group of 30 with a smaller group of four workers who had voted one year earlier to join Local 1M.

"We\'ve had 29 meetings in the past two years trying to get a first-time contract," reported Dean Stanton, secretary-treasurer of Local 1M.

Then, 90 minutes before an April 10 negotiation session, Local 1M received a call from Helen Wainwright, the Star Tribune\'s vice president of Human Resources. Local 1M\'s Stanton said Wainwright announced she would be presenting two proposals to the union: first, to outsource some of the unit\'s work, second, to begin negotiating a severance package.

Details emerged at the April 10 meeting. The Star Tribune said Local 1M could agree to the outsourcing proposal and severance package for 25 of the jobs in the unit, continue negotiating, or agree to accept $500,000 in wage and benefit concessions to maintain the unit\'s current 32 jobs. Do the math: that concession request amounts to more than $15,000 in proposed concessions per worker.

"They told us they wanted to take this to resolution by mid-summer," Stanton reported. "This is just blatant union-busting tactics."

The workers in the threatened unit design the newspaper\'s ads and also design and proof page layouts. Some are longtime Star Tribune employees with up to 20 years\' service while others are more recent hires.

"I don\'t think the Star Tribune is thinking this through from a quality standpoint," said Jane McHattie, assistant lead classified paginator and a three-year Star Tribune employee. She said the current design team\'s quality work, ability to make last-minute changes, and proofreading "saves their butt night after night after night."

"Sometimes there\'s late-breaking news and we have to move things around," McHattie said. In the final proofing, she added, "we find a lot of errors."

"They\'re just looking at the numbers," McHattie said. She said any labor cost savings the newspaper might gain from outsourcing would be offset by losses in quality control, customer service, and the ability to make those last-minute changes.

"What kind of customer service can you have half a world away?" McHattie asked. She noted that directions from auto dealers — some of the newspaper\'s most important advertisers — can come in hand-written notes and that those advertisers push the limit on last-minute requests for changes. "The salesperson isn\'t going to be able to go to the designer and say \'this needs a little tweak.\'"

"I know our sales staff is concerned about how this will affect our ad revenue," senior designer Miller said. "Our advertising customers should be concerned that the people producing our ads aren\'t even in the same country anymore," he added. "I\'m hoping the Star Tribune hears from customers who are concerned about this plan."

Both Miller and McHattie have been part of the GCC/IBT Local 1M negotiating team. "We were making progress" to negotiate the unit\'s first contract, Miller noted, adding that "the company wasn\'t in any hurry."

Even if the outsourcing goes forward, both Miller and McHattie emphasized, that contract still would need to be settled for the remaining employees.

McHattie said the company\'s proposal is hitting the workers hard. "They take pride in the work they do," she said. "To have the company come and pull the rug out from under you [says] \'we don\'t care if you have a family and bills to pay, we just want to look into getting rid of you.\'"

McHattie observed that the threat to outsource 25 jobs in the Star Tribune graphics department is part of a larger trend sending new types of U.S. jobs overseas. "We\'re cutting the heart out of middle class America," she said.
"I\'m worried how many other types of jobs in America can be outsourced… Who\'s going to support our economy?"

The next negotiating session between the Star Tribune and GCC/IBT Local 1M is set for April 24-25.

Steve Share edits the Minneapolis Labor Review, official publication of the Minneapolis Central Labor Union Council, AFL-CIO. Visit the CLUC website, www.minneapolisunions.org