PHOENIX — The stage is being set for vote by reporters at the state's largest newspaper whether to form a union as its parent company is set to be acquired by another firm.
Late Tuesday, Greg Burton, executive editor of The Arizona Republic, declined to recognize a union, even as proponents said they have submitted cards seeking recognition from more than 70 percent of the estimated 100 eligible employees.
Burton said Gannett, which owns The Republic — and has both unionized and non-union newsrooms — has found that involvement by the NewsGuild "has not helped these news organizations better serve the interests of our readers.''
The Arizona Republic, in Phoenix, is distinct from the Arizona Daily Star, in Tucson, and the two newspapers have separate ownership.
NewsGuild representative Stephanie Basile said the next step at The Republic is for the National Labor Relations Board to schedule an election, which she said should occur in about four weeks.
Burton, in a memo to employees, is urging them to reject the union.
Some senior reporters have questioned whether things will be worse under a union, with any contract negotiated potentially boosting pay for those at the bottom of the scale while taking back some of the benefits senior staffers currently enjoy.
That internal dispute has turned ugly, with accusations by union foes that organizers are tracking their comings and goings.
Rebekah Sanders, one of the organizers, said newsrooms here and elsewhere have taken an "absolute hammering'' in the past decade. The result has been fewer reporters to cover the local news.
She said many reporters believe the cuts are unnecessary.
"Journalists are looking at the company they work for and the fact that they are still profitable and executives are still earning huge bonuses and not seeing that trickle down to the journalists who are actually doing the work,'' Sanders said.
Gannett has agreed to be acquired by GateHouse Media which owns nearly 150 daily newspapers and more than 684 community publications, including the Arizona Capitol Times. Sanders said there is a fear that will lead to more layoffs.
Sanders said organized reporters can build public opposition to future efforts to shrink the newsroom.
"We know that executives, we know that investors are sensitive to the public image of the company,'' she said. The message, she said, would be that further cuts help neither the quality of journalism nor the business model.
She said the union could also provide some protections if cuts are inevitable. "At the moment, when there is a layoff, you find out the day that you're let go,'' Sanders said. She said severance benefits are "quite small.''
A union could negotiate advance notice to let people try to find new jobs, as well as provide post-termination health benefits, Sanders said.
Craig Harris, who will have been with Gannett for 25 years in January, acknowledged the string of layoffs. The result, he said, is the newsroom went from about 450 when he started to just around 130 today, with 13 staff reductions alone since 2008.
"Every single one of them sucks,'' Harris said, calling them "devastating'' not only to those let go but to those who remain "because it hurts to see your employees, your colleagues lose their jobs.'' But he said that, as a whole, those let go were offered buy-outs, with severance pay of up to a year's worth of salary plus medical coverage.
Harris said he sees no benefit of organizing: "We are in an industry that is not anywhere close to being as profitable as it once was,'' he said.
He said the fact that Gannett executives may be doing well is largely irrelevant. "Whether we like it or not, corporate executives are going to make a lot of money,'' Harris said. "And that's life.''
The issues are personal for Harris and other senior reporters.
"We've been treated well,'' he said, citing the seven weeks of vacation he gets and a dollar-for-dollar corporate match for all employees on contributions to the company 401(k) retirement plan.
"We have a family leave program, we have an adoption program, we have a tuition reimbursement program,'' Harris said. And he said that, unlike some union shops, employees are on an honor system for the hours they put in, meaning no fixed start time and the ability to take outside gigs like teaching at the journalism school.
What really concerns him, Harris said, is that a union populated by younger employees could negotiate away those benefits enjoyed by senior staffers in favor of some additional cash for those with less experience.
"There's a real divide,'' he said.
That divide also has become personal.
"They were essentially spying on us,'' Harris said of union supporters. He said they were tracking the comings and goings of he and others who had not signed organizing cards.
Reporter Yvonne Wingett Sanchez said she met with union organizers but, after she expressed doubts, "they started monitoring and logging my movements, as well as my facial expressions during meetings.''
"This is surveillance and it is wrong,'' she said in a Twitter post.
Sanders, for her part, acknowledged that union backers have been monitoring "pushback'' from management and others who are not supporting the organizing effort. That, she said, includes keeping track of individual reactions in group meetings.
"We have taken the temperature of the room to better understand what messages were resonating with people and what messages we need to follow up with them about and to provide them the real facts,'' Sanders said.
"That's just basic Organizing 101,'' she said. "If we were not communicating about those issues, then we would be doing a terrible job and would not be as successful as we are.''
Harris, however, said the activities of union supporters crossed the line.
"The line is, we're family,'' he said. "When you're family you don't do that to each other.''
