President's Perspective
Reflections on The Newspaper Guild-CWA Sector Conference

(June 26, 2009) One of the perks of being a Guild local president is that when the Newspaper Guild sector of the CWA hosts a sector conference in your town you get to make welcoming remarks to the delegates.

After the obligatory jokes, I told delegates to enjoy all the attractions that the District of Columbia had to offer, but “let’s be conscientious delegates first.” From all I could tell, the 110 delegates from 40-plus Guild locals were indeed conscientious.

Among the big issues that had to be tackled was a proposal to change the union’s name from The Newspaper Guild to The Media Guild.

Almost immediately, a delegate offered a substitute motion suggesting “The News Guild” as a show of support for our beleaguered core industry. Other delegates opined that “The Media Guild” looked more stridently to the future and could encompass more workers from more walks of life, while others declared that even removing “paper” from “Newspaper Guild” served as a tacit admission that our industry was dying.

In the end, all discussion was tabled by a strong majority voice vote.

Where do I fall on the issue? Even though I haven’t worked for a newspaper for 20 years –- my employer is a news agency that’s depended on satellites and the Internet to publish during my tenure – I’m rather fond of our original name, and it's served us well for 76 years. But, if we want other unions to join us – or we want to join other unions – it may be easier for all the parties in such a deal to come to agreement on a name as part of the pact, and then sell it to our respective memberships.

'Parent-Union' Convention
After a one-day hiatus, the convention of the Communications Workers of America, the Guild’s parent union, kicked in. Its size was roughly 16 times that of the Guild’s own sector conference, which makes for a different dynamic. Unfettered debate like that you find at the Guild gathering is not possible at a CWA convention. Instead, two people maximum can speak on either side of an issue and voting is conducted by a show of hands.

The biggest debate at the CWA convention was over whether to allow money from CWA’s three-year-old Strategic Industry Fund to be used for organizing. The “ayes” had it in a show of hands, but under CWA rules, a show of hands of 20 percent of the delegates can force a roll call. Each delegates votes his or her share of his local’s voting strength as computed by membership. Our six WBNG delegates had 283 votes each. I don’t know how they voted, but it seemed from our conversations during the voting that we were all for the proposal. – which ultimately carried the day by a 2-to-1 ratio.

Another consequence of limited debate is that, instead of speaking, CWA delegates line up at the microphone behind the speakers to show their support for the position. To be honest, I find it a little silly since there are few issues that engender much debate. But when the organizing-money resolution came up for discussion, I found myself bolting for the other end of the room where the “for” microphone was to show my own support. And, to my surprise, I got complimented by another WBNG delegate for demonstrating my support for organizing by virtue of the simple act of getting out a chair and walking to a microphone. Maybe there’s something to this standing-up thing after all.

NABET-CWA Members Seek Support – Ask TV Viewers to "Turn off" NBC.