Seattle Strife   

O N NOVEMBER 21, the Pacific Northwest Newspaper Guild--which represents 812 employees from the Seattle Times and 130 from the Post-Intelligencer--went on strike. The news, advertising and circulation workers had been without a contract since July 22.
The sticking point, not surprisingly, had been money. And the morning papers and striking employees weathered the holidays with less of it. Although both papers' circulation and advertising dropped, they published every day during the dispute.
The Newspaper Guild had been negotiating jointly on behalf of workers at both papers, but the P-I staffers accepted management's terms a bit sooner: on December 28, day 38 of the strike. It took the intervention of the state's Democratic U.S. Sen. Patty Murray and a trip to Washington, D.C., for union leaders and Times management to reach an agreement. Eventually, on January 8, day 49, Seattle Times strikers voted in favor of the stipulations, 359 to 116.
The long, tense negotiating was reflected in the outcome: little movement in the way of money. Immediately before the strike, the Guild had lowered its asking price to a $3.25 hourly raise over three years. The papers offered $3.30 over six years.
The Guild accepted the $3.30 over six provision, but did gain other concessions. The Times' two-tier pay system, which gives less compensation to suburban staffers, will be abolished. Staffers will pay less in medical premiums, and some employees will be given higher pay scales, hence, more money. Incentives for early retirement were negotiated as part of a return-to-work agreement. Before the strike, the base pay for a reporter with six years' experience had been $844.88 a week. The differences in the Times and P-I contracts mostly had to do with the fact that more Times employees, such as advertising and circulation staffers, were represented by the Guild.
At the end, there were several deal-makers: The Guild allowed union picket-line crossers to stay on the job; the return for some who struck could take up to six months. (Management originally wanted to take up to a year, says the Guild's chief negotiator, Bruce Meachum.) The Times also agreed it would remove or reassign replacement workers in eight weeks. The last Guild strike at the Blethen family-controlled Times (Knight Ridder owns a 49.5 percent share) occurred in 1953, and at the Hearst-owned Post-Intelligencer in 1936. The two papers entered a joint operating agreement in 1983.
The aftermath finds the Times with monetary and quite possibly circulation losses from its daily pre-strike level of 225,687: It has been reported that the Times lost millions of dollars, and spokeswoman Kerry Coughlin says that's as close to a figure as the company will confirm. She also says the Times will cut at least 10 percent of its workforce throughout the company as a result, but the downsizing should occur through attrition and early retirements. Post-Intelligencer Business Manager John Currie would not reveal any money or circulation losses (it was 175,794 before the strike), and he says his paper has no staff-cutting plans. Meanwhile, the Guild, says Meachum, has some concerns about the return-to-work process, and grievances will be filed.