Eleven News-Press journalists have received two-day unpaid suspensions for their roles in an Aug. 24 effort to deliver a letter to owner-publisher Wendy McCaw demanding improvement in the terms and conditions of their employment, an attorney for the Teamsters union said Friday.

The action by the employees was “protected, concerted activity” that took place peacefully and on their break time, said Ira Gottlieb, attorney for the Graphic Communications Conference of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters.

Some members of the newsroom staff are seeking to be represented by the Teamsters. An election and other proceedings in the matter have been delayed by increasingly bitter squabbling between the two sides.

In response to the suspensions, the union filed an unfair-labor-practices charge against News-Press management with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB).

A company spokeswoman said only that “disciplinary action” had been taken against some employees.

“We're saying that it's legally protected conduct to gather employees together, to complain to management or to ask management to change a working condition or to improve working conditions,” Gottlieb said.

The union's charge follows a complaint reportedly filed with the NLRB Wednesday by the News-Press, alleging that the gathering of employees constituted “intimidating and disruptive behavior.”

Advertisement

Gottlieb said that the union's charge was not in response to the News-Press's complaint, but rather to the suspensions.

News-Press spokeswoman Agnes Huff maintained Friday that the most recent charge filed with the NLRB by the newspaper regarding the gathering of employees was an amendment to an unfair-labor-practice charge already filed by the newspaper against employees. Tony Bisceglia, NLRB spokesman, said Wednesday that charge had been withdrawn, which Huff denied.

Bisceglia could not be reached Friday to confirm whether charges in the employee gathering incident had been filed with the NLRB by both sides.

Huff, owner of the public relations firm Agnes Huff Communications, said, “There was disciplinary action taken against some people that violated ... policy.”

She declined to discuss whether News-Press employees were suspended, or to reveal the names of those reportedly suspended, saying that it was a personnel matter.

Gottlieb said that 11 newsroom staff members were given letters saying they would be suspended for two days, but that as of Friday, suspensions had not been implemented.

He said that he did not know all the names of those involved, but said he was told that reporters Dawn Hobbs and Rob Kuznia and copy editor Lara Milton were among them. A source who spoke on condition of anonymity said that others involved were reporters Mike Traphagen and Barney McManigal and copy editor Al Bonowitz. Traphagen previously had given notice that he was leaving the paper.

Gottlieb provided a copy of a letter addressed to Hobbs, announcing her two-day unpaid suspension for her involvement in the assembly. The letter indicated Hobbs would be advised by her supervisor of the dates when the suspension would be served.

The letter was from Scott Steepleton, associate editor, and was dated Aug. 31.

Steepleton wrote that he told Hobbs and other reporters gathered in the newsroom that they could meet in the lunch room if they wanted to assemble, but not in the newsroom, and told them to get back to work. He wrote that employees ignored him and marched to McCaw's office.

Although McCaw was not present, the group outside her office knocking on the door “was a clear and outrageous attempt to physically intimidate Mrs. McCaw and everyone else in the workplace,” Steepleton wrote.

They then ignored another directive by Steepleton to get back to work, he wrote, and interrupted a meeting in Human Resources Director Yolanda Apodaca's office.

Gottlieb also provided a letter sent Aug. 31 from Apodaca to all newsroom staff stating that any employee who engages in similar behavior in the future is subject to discipline up to and including termination.

Newsroom staff members of the News-Press said there will be a press conference Tuesday in De la Guerra Plaza, outside the newspaper's offices, to make announcements regarding the suspension of newsroom employees, subscriber cancellation pledges scheduled to be enacted Tuesday if demands are not met, the NLRB election hearing and election, McCaw's hiring of a private investigation and a new security firm, and details of future campaign efforts.

Samantha Yale can be reached at 739-2159 or syale@santamariatimes.com.

Sept. 2, 2006