By Matthew Hirsch

If the July labor agreement at the San Francisco Chronicle was meant to signal a new spirit of cooperation between union and management, the enlightenment lasted all of two months.

Exactly eight weeks after the contract was ratified, union leaders say the Chronicle has already violated the agreement. The Northern California Media Workers Guild – which represents newsroom, advertising, and circulation employees – filed a pair of grievances Sept. 20 but has failed so far to influence management under the new contract.

Guild members say loyal veteran staffers who took a buyout offer were given just a few days to pack up their belongings and walk out the door. More than 100 others who asked to leave the Chron were told they wouldn't get the buyout, which awarded a hefty payout to senior employees. Still others, who thought they had 45 days to reconsider, were summarily shown the door.

Hearst Corp., which owns the Chronicle, has played hardball from the start. The company made extensive plans to crush a strike and then proceeded to gut the union's contract, once considered among the most favorable to workers in the media business.

The guild, meanwhile, never stood up to the challenge. Union leaders told the Bay Guardian they had to make concessions to save the Chron from financial ruin, but by doing so they gave up considerable power to resist management. Only now, after cutting its deal, is the guild taking a stand against Hearst.

"Whatever shred of morale was left over after the contract was ratified was shredded further by the way management has handled itself," Carl Hall, a science writer and the guild's past president, told us.

This challenge creates another headache for Chronicle publisher Frank Vega, who has yet to convince the pressmen, mailers, machinists, and typographical unions to sign new labor contracts. But for the media guild, still reeling from a contract its president described as "terrible" before the ink was dry, the dispute calls into question whether it can still effectively represent its members.

Some say by signing a no-strike clause in the new contract, the guild left the door open for Hearst to attack. As restaurant columnist GraceAnn Walden told us, "Once you take away our ability to strike, then you have no union."

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The Media Workers Guild ratified a five-year labor agreement with the Chronicle July 27, three weeks after its last contract had expired. It was the first new contract negotiation since a 12-day strike in 1994 and the first since Hearst bought the Chronicle.

Eighty-two percent of guild members voted to ratify the contract, which included pay cuts, fewer vacation and sick days, and removed job protection for some staff. All this prompted guild president Michael Cabanatuan to tell the press it's a "terrible contract."

Cabanatuan told us he's since heard grumbling in the newsroom about how the guild handled the negotiations. Some say the union should have been more aggressive. Others say it should have been more prepared to strike.

"Sometimes I agree. Sometimes I don't. But the reality is, it wouldn't have changed anything," Cabanatuan told us.

Had the guild rejected Hearst's final proposal, Cabanatuan said it would have risked losing a generous buyout for senior staff. Under the deal, employees age 55 and over would receive three weeks' pay for every year they'd worked at the Chron, up to 104 weeks' pay – plus retirement pay.

The buyout offered two weeks' pay for each year at the Chronicle for employees age 40 to 55 and one weeks' pay per year for employees under 40.

The contract also said employees who didn't volunteer for the buyout could still be singled out for termination, which helped convince 220 Chronicle employees to ask for a one-way ticket home (that's roughly 25 percent of the staff).

Among those leaving the Chronicle are sports writer Glenn Dickey and editorial writer Ken Garcia, whose departures were first reported on GradeTheNews.org. George Powell, a longtime editor of the Chronicle Sunday Magazine, also took the buyout.

Powell, a 28-year Hearst employee, told us he wasn't about to wait around and let management make the decision for him: "A little bird sitting on my shoulder told me if a list existed for people to be involuntarily terminated, I would be on it. I didn't want to be around for the other shoe to drop."

But here's where things got messy, said Powell, a member of the union's grievance committee.

Instead of choosing 120 employees for the buyout, which is the total number of staff cuts allowed under the contract, the company picked only 91.

Chronicle spokesperson Patricia Hoyt told us "it didn't make financial sense" to eliminate all 120 jobs at once. But that hasn't dispelled the guild's suspicion that management is saving the remaining staff cuts for the employees it likes least.

The Chronicle also refused to let some employees stay on the job who were selected for the buyout, even though union leaders say they were given 45 days to reconsider.

A Chronicle memo we obtained claims employees misunderstood the contract. The memo, sent by executive vice president Gary Anderson, said senior employees who are asked to waive age discrimination claims in connection with a buyout must be given 45 days to reconsider, by law.

But Anderson says that doesn't mean the employee gets to stay on the job during that time. "Nothing requires that the 45-day period be a paid period or that an employee may not be terminated prior to or during that period,& quot; he told the staff.

The guild filed two grievances over this dispute and is threatening to sue the Chronicle if they're not resolved in arbitration.

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The Special Reduction in Force Program, or the Voluntary Termination Incentive Program – two names Hearst gave its buyout option – has been called an epic fiasco by some staffers.

The experience raises all kinds of questions about the folks in charge: at Hearst and the media guild. For example, why would the company disrupt a docile union that just gave over huge concessions in its contract without so much as threatening to fight back?

And why didn't the guild bring a lawyer to the bargaining table when Hearst brought Peter Hurtgen, one of the nation's top labor lawyers? ("A lot of our members asked the same thing," Cabanatuan told us.)

After losing a reported $62 million last year, even the media guild thinks drastic changes are needed to make the Chronicle solvent again. But now the buyout fiasco brings up yet another good question: Which foundering organization will be harder to turn around: the Chronicle or its union?

a staff memo from Chronicle publisher Frank Vega

a staff memo from executive VP Gary Anderson - part 2

a letter from copy editor Peter Kupfer

a partial list of people who are leaving the Chronicle According to guild members, here are some of the people who are leaving the Chronicle:
Sports writer David Bush, assistant foreign editor Teresa Castle, sports writer Dwight Chapin, sports writer Glenn Dickey, copy editor Margo Freistadt, editorial writer Ken Garcia, copy chief Wayne Heuring, copy editor Ann Hill, page designer Terri Hunter-Davis, graphics editor Jack Ivers, copy editor Peter Kupfer, book critic Adair Lara, religion writer Don Lattin, assistant metro editor Tyra Mead, researcher Charles Malarkey, sports writer Ira Miller, features writer Annie Nakao, news editor George Powell, news editor Darren Richardson, copy editor Judy Richter, photographer John Storey, state editor Brian Sulkis, reporter Kathleen Sullivan, health writer Ulysses Torassa, reporter Bill Wallace and page designer Abby Zimberg.