If you're sitting at your cubicle wasting time on a Monday morning reading this, count your lucky stars you're even allowed to be at work.
With two of their unions already locked out of work, The Blade newspaper in Toledo, Ohio locked out three more unions Sunday, affecting a total of 195 employees, increasing the number of affected employees from 18 to 213. So, a small increase.
The family-owned, Pulitzer Prize-winning Blade is in what is technically known as a financial pickle. The 135,000 daily circulation newspaper – one of many with dwindling circulation numbers – has been negotiating with the eight unions that comprise their workforce of about 600, with little to no luck.
So far The Blade's engravers, paper handlers, mailers, drop-off site deliverymen, and advertisement processors are all taking an unscheduled vacation this week – and perhaps longer.
A three-year deal, agreed upon back in 2003, included a wage freeze but expired back in March of this year. Since then, just one of the eight unions has signed a new deal – the electrical workers. This leaves two unions: the Toledo Newspaper Guild, representing the newsroom, ad reps, and circulation workers; and the Graphics Communication, which represents the pressmen. And if those two unions get locked out in the near future (they might), then, well, hey – at least the building will have electricity.
As a result of the lockouts, the Toledo Council of Newspaper Unions called for a boycott of The Blade, urging readers to cancel subscriptions and advertisers to pull ads.
Now, granted, I'm a stringer for the "other paper" in town – the Toledo Free Press, a weekly tabloid, which relies heavily on freelance reporting – and shouldn't get a sick thrill out of this crisis in the making. My firsthand knowledge of being in a union is non-existent, and I could be considered biased against The Blade administration for being part of the competition. We can all assume how I'd feel if next week's edition of the Free Press is 406 pages long, but this situation affects hundreds of jobs, and there is no thrill out of witnessing that.
Article comments
1 - blockead bros
I knew Jeff Heitz from almost the day he started as a street reporter for Channel 11, doing what I did and “on-screen”, I got to know him for 30 years of news stories and his journalistic integrity and ability.
All gone now… a “whore” for the Toledo Blade…how sad.
Has lost all he spent a career building for a few measly bucks from the Toledo Blade.
I am not “pro-union”, by any stretch of the imagination, but Heitz has lost even the semblence of a journalist…. a “shill”, a “propagandist”, “mouth piece”, could add more, but let you decide.
But give me a break…if the Block twins don’t make a profit (yeah, like they don’t), Toledo is doomed.
The Toledo Blade has tried to control northwest Ohio since the days of Paul Block, virtually unfettered…what goes around, comes around, and everytime you see a Jeff Heitz Blade infomercial on the cable monopoly they own, (what, 48 times a day?) hope you believe that the best thing that could happen is if the “If it’s news today, it’s news to us” Blade goes under and a real newspaper company, takes over, Toledo will be much better for it.