Post Workers Put Down Pens, Pick Up Picket Signs

(Metropolitan Washington Council, AFL-CIO)“A lot of workers are angry,” said Washington Post reporter Fredric Kunkle, as dozens of Washington Post employees picketed outside Post headquarters on 15th Street NW Thursday during lunch, banging cowbells and thumping drums. “We have seen many of our colleagues pushed or shoved out the door.” The Post workers – members of the Washington-Baltimore Newspaper Guild/CWA 32035 – charge that the Post is trying to eviscerate benefits and job protections during ongoing contract negotiations. And the workers are having a hard time buying the Post’s claim of economic hardship when publisher Katherine Weymouth recently collected a generous 16.4% raise on top of a $1.5 million bonus. “We see a lot of money going to the top management here,” said Kunkle, who covers government and politics in Northern Virginia and Fairfax County, “yet we haven’t seen real raises in years. It has become harder for people to pay their bills. (Workers) feel like if there’s enough money for the bonuses, then there’s enough money to give people some sort of cost of living increase or raise.” Sixty percent of the Guild members at the Post have not had a pay raise since May 2008, according to Guild representative Rick Ehrmann. “At the same time, the Post wants to strip most of the job security provisions out of our contract and reduce severance pay by fifty percent.” Turnout at the noontime picketline – which featured multicolored balloons as well as the usual chants and noisemakers – was good, Ehrmann said, noting that the Post scheduled a last-minute brown-bag lunch at the same time as the Guild demonstration. Despite a tempting topic -- ‘How to get on page A1’ (the Post front page) – dozens of editorial employees hit the streets instead and “we’re planning more actions in the coming weeks,”  said Ehrmann.
– report/photo by Adam Wright