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Title: Small is not beautiful
Author: Tom Wetzel
Date: April 1987
Language: en
Topics: bay area, California, journalism, workplace struggles
Source: Retrieved on 12th October 2020 from https://libcom.org/library/small-not-beautiful
Notes: Published in Processed World #19

Tom Wetzel

Small is not beautiful

It’s 9:00 Friday night. The last stragglers from the editorial

department have departed. The other typesetter and I have the Bay

Guardian building to ourselves. Two piles of manila folders sit on the

typesetting machine, to my left. They contain the order slips for

classified ads. One pile gradually dwindles as the folders are moved to

the other pile, marking my progress. The machine occasionally clanks as

it changes type style or size.

“Love is friendship caught fire!” appears at the top of the video

screen. Ah, yes. Tire relationships section. This, the fattest of the

file folders, should keep my fingers busy for the rest of my

9-10-hour-long shift. When I first began typesetting the classifieds, I

found the relationships section sort of poignant. “All those people out

there looking to connect with somebody.” I thought about the care some

people take in choosing just the right words. But as the Friday nights

came and went, I soon became jaded and the words slipped through my

fingers in a blur. The San Francisco Bay Guardian was founded by Bruce

Brugmann and his wife, Jean Dibble, in 1966. Unlike other alternative

papers of that era, such as the Berkeley Barb and the L.A. Free Press,

the BG wasn’t countercultural. Nor did it follow the political currents

of the ‘60s New Left, as did the National Guardian in New York.

Brugmann’s journalistic background was in the commercial dailies.

Nonetheless, the Bay Guardian has always had political pretensions, and

its pages uphold various leftist causes-environmental protection,

abortion rights, rent control, unions, anti-Manhattanization--and expose

monopolistic abuses. To the BG “politics” is primarily a matter of

elections, and, thus, of the politicians who control the top-down

machinery of American government. The paper has been supportive of such

groups as Democratic Socialists of America, Berkeley Citizens Action,

and Tom Hayden’s now-defunct Campaign for Economic Democracy. In 1971

the Bay Guardian was “a chronically struggling business,” writes James

Brice, “with a spare 17,000 subscribers paying for the four issues it

managed to publish” that year. Dibble and Brugmann hoped the paper could

make money, says Brice, “if it went weekly” but they lacked the

necessary capital. Ironically, they got it from their arch rivals the

big dailies.

Like a number of other papers in the Bay Area, the BG had filed an

antitrust suit in the late 60’s against the two remaining dailies in San

Francisco, the Hearst-owned Examiner and the Chronicle. The two dailies

had merged their advertising and production operations, an action

authorized by the Newspaper Preservation Act of 1965, which granted a

special antitrust exemption to daily newspapers. In May 1975, Brugmann

and Dibble dropped their lawsuit in exchange for an out of court

settlement of $500,000. (The lawyers got about $200,000.) This was a

rather shrewd move as the papers that pursued the lawsuit to the end

(such as the Pacific Sun) eventually lost. When the BG became a free

weekly in the late ‘70s, the larger circulation and weekly schedule

enabled the paper to capture a growing share of the Bay Area advertising

market. Although advertising by the major local retailers (Macy’s,

Emporium Capwell, etc.) remains safely in the pocket of the big dailies,

the BG’s increased circulation made it attractive to national

advertisers, and the full-page ads for cigarettes and liquor contributed

considerably to BG revenue. The paper made its first profit in fiscal

1982. From January 1982 to January 1985 the paper’s classified ad

lineage increased from 20 cents to 60 cents, this means the paper’s

classified ad revenue increased by approximately 495%. And in 1981

management increased the print-run of its entertainment section to

100,000 copies, and then jacked up the rates for entertainment

advertising.

The BG’s craven reliance on business advertising necessarily shapes its

editorial direction. The packet distributed to potential advertisers

candidly admits this: ‘The Guardian tailors its editorial material to

(an) audience” of 24-to-36-year-old “self-involved consumers. “EXPOSE

YOURSELF! to 180,000 hot young professionals with money to burn.”

Certain issues each year were planned out in advance so as to appeal to

specific segments of the business community (consumer electronics, wine,

etc.)

Despite the BG’s new-found profitability and ever-growing production

pressures, wages remained low. In 1982 production artists and

proofreaders were paid about $5.50 per hour. By 1985 the rate had inched

up from $6.00 to $6.50. Typesetters were paid $5.50 when I was hired in

1982; today the starting rate is $7.50. Pay for clerical and sales staff

in Classified was approximately the same. It was considered a Privilege

to work in Editorial but pay in that department was, if anything, even

lower. Editorial staff is paid a salary, which enables the BG to avoid

overtime pay. At the end of 1981, the copy editor was making the

equivalent of $6.50 an hour, while some editorial staffers were paid

even less. Early in 1985, the woman hired to compile the weekly

entertainment listings had been assured a four-day week for $150. But

she found that the job required a 40-hour week, and she decided to have

a chat with Alan Kay, the managing editor. “Am I going to get paid for

Fridays?” she asked. Alan put his head in his hands, then looked up at

her. “How about a restaurant meal?” he asked plaintively. Her pay

amounted to less than $4 per hour.

ENTER DISTRICT 65

I was hired in 1982 towards the end of a year-long effort to organize

the staff into District 65. District 65, a union of textile and dry

goods wholesale workers originally founded by Communists in the ‘30s,

has organized publishing industry workers in New York City in recent

years. Here in San Francisco, District 65, now affiliated to the United

Auto Workers (UAW), is the union of the Mother Jones staff. Low pay and

lack of any say in decisions seemed to be the two main areas of concern

among BG workers. When management learned that members of the staff were

trying to persuade co-workers to join a union, a meeting was called.

Brugmann ranted about how unions would mean “outside control” of the

paper. On the issue of low pay, management pleaded poverty. Members of

the staff responded by asking what salaries management were getting. If

the paper’s finances are limited, a number of staffers thought, then

management salaries should be reduced to allow raises for the lowest

paid. But BG management refused to tell us how much money managers were

taking out of the paper.

About this time a meeting with a representative of District 65 was held

for BG workers. The issues of the paper’s editorial direction and its

increasing subservience to advertisers were raised, along with the idea

of lowering management salaries so as to raise workers’ pay. “Unions

can’t take on issues of editorial content, or ask that managers’

salaries be lowered,” Dibble asserted. What she was getting at is that

the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) and courts cannot require

employers to negotiate these issues. But just because the government

won’t compel an employer to negotiate contested issues doesn’t mean

unions can’t raise them. A workers’ organization can try to fight for

anything it wants to. What workers can achieve ultimately depends upon

the power they can bring to bear on the situation. This is affected by

such factors as internal cohesion among the workers and support in the

community. This is true even for issues that employers are nominally

required by law to negotiate, such as wages, hours and benefits. The

government can’t be counted on to support workers’ demands.

Some members of the BG staff were dissatisfied with District 65’s rather

narrow, legalistic approach. What was needed was an independent

organization, some of us thought, an organization that we could control

directly. An independent group did continue for a while, but eventually

stopped meeting. Nonetheless, a pattern of solidarity and mutual

consultation had been established and continued informally.

THE STRIKE IN 1976

As the District 65 organizing drive fizzled out, about a dozen people

quit. This was not the first BG unionization attempt. The first such

effort led to an NLRB vote in December 1975, which certified the Bay

Area Typographical Union (ITU) and the Newspaper Guild as the recognized

unions at the paper. Staff pay had been very low in the early ‘70s--base

rates then ranged from $2.50 to $3.75 per hour. Benefits were

nonexistent. A long-standing graffito in the employees’ lavatory had the

words “Guardian health plan” inked in large letters, with an arrow

pointing to a drawing of a book. The book was entitled “Holy Bible.”

In its early days the paper had an informal atmosphere and lines of

authority were rather vague--not unusual at small “start-up” companies.

Then came the $300,000 from the anti-trust settlement. “The deathly poor

newspaper that had shared its poverty with its beggarly staff now seemed

richly endowed,” writes James Brice. (“A look back at the strike nobody

won” Mediafile, June, 1973) But decisions about what to do with the

money were quickly made by those at the top, before staffers had a

chance to have any say over what should be done with it. Money was

poured into new typesetting equipment and a down-payment on a building.

“The settlement made us feel more left out of the decision-making

process,” recalled Katy Butler (now a Chronicle reporter). At the same

time, the change to a weekly schedule meant increased production

pressures. Though staffers were concerned about the low wages and lack

of benefits or job security, these issues were “secondary to job

satisfaction and worker participation in decision-making,” according to

Brice. “A union seemed to be a sure way to gain leverage.” Hence the

vote for the ITU and Newspaper Guild.

After six months of table-pounding negotiations, the Union reduced its

demand to 25 cents per hour across-the-board. Employees also wanted one

week notice of termination, an agreed grievance procedure, limited sick

pay, and pay for overtime. But the BG refused these demands, and in June

of ’76, 21 employees, both full-time and part time walked out. The

bitter strike--marked by vandalism and sabotage--dragged on for eight

months. Recently, Bruce Brugmann has described this struggle as an

attempt by “the unions from the local newspaper monopoly...to impose

their standard contract on a struggling, competitive, independent small

business “* (Bill Mandel’s column, SF Examiner, Oct. 29, 1986). The

concerns of the workers thus disappear, they become non-entities. Funny

how he was no less opposed, in 1982 to District 65, which has no

contracts at the “monopoly” dailies.

INFORMAL SOLIDARITY

Informal solidarity, as I mentioned, had continued to exist in the wake

of the District 65 organizing drive even though no ongoing organization

had gotten entrenched at the BG. This was necessary to deal with the

BG’s arbitrary management practices. An incident in 1984 illustrates

this. The BG advertises its job openings in the classified section of

the paper each week. The BG Employee Manual states that notice of

openings must be posted and current employees given preference. However,

while typesetting the BG job ads one week, the typesetters came across

an advertisement for an ad designer. But the BG already had an ad

designer, a Japanese immigrant who had done the job for a number of

years. Management had tried to demote him a couple of years before, but

then backed down”. Anyway, a group of artists and typesetters protested

the running of this ad, but our boss disclaimed responsibility for this

violation of written policy and past guarantees. Some time that weekend

the job ad disappeared from the classified page flats and the ad was

erased from computer disk.

BG management were not very happy about this sabotage, we heard, and

rumors of firings were in the air. “If they fire anyone, we should all

go on strike,” one woman remarked to me. I think quite a few production

staff members felt that way. However, a meeting was held and we were

reassured that no demotion was going to take place. At the same time,

four people were singled out for written warnings about “tampering with

the work product.”

In the wake of this incident some of us met with a business agent from

the Graphic Communications Union (GCIU). The press operators at the shop

where the BG was printed belong to this union. If we ever went on

strike, we knew that the first thing we’d want to do would be to appeal

to the press operators to refuse to print the paper. The business agent

gave us a copy of the printing industry master contract, which some of

us discussed later. The worst clause in the contract stated: “There will

be no strike or other economic pressure through concerted action by the

employees and/or the union.” In other words, workers’ hands are tied

while any beefs inch through the bureaucratic grievance machinery to

final arbitration. “But the only way we are able to get anything around

here is through collective pressure,” one BG staffer commented. The

contract also stipulated that dues be deducted from the employees’

paychecks and then sent directly to the union. In decades past, dues

were not deducted and shop stewards had to go around hustling the

members’ dues, which gave members the opportunity to push their concerns

directly.

Why couldn’t BG employees remain independent and still appeal to the

press operators to not print the paper in the event of a strike? Another

clause in the press operators’ contract explains the problem:

“Employees...shall not be required to cross a picket line because of a

strike if sanctioned by the Central Labor Council...” This means the

printers are not allowed to take action to support a strike--such as

refusing to print a struck paper--without the approval of the top local

AFL-CIO officials. Without such sanction, the printers would be at risk

of losing their jobs. The purpose of this sort of contract is to ensure

that workers solidarity is controlled by top officials rather than the

workers themselves. The employers gain by the union’s promise not to

disrupt production and the officials gain control over the labor

movement.

Even if the bureaucratic AFL-CIO-type unions encourage little real

solidarity between workers in different workplaces, small groups of

workers will tend to seek the protection of these unions because they

offer at least the promise of greater leverage, however illusory this

may be. This tendency is likely to prevail until there emerges an

independent workers movement that can provide an alternative for groups

of workers seeking a larger movement to ally with.

OBSTACLES TO WORKER ORGANIZATION

The BG has been able to maintain a “union-free environment” and contain

periodic bouts of disaffection through a combination of circumstances.

For one thing, many BG staffers are employed part-time. I’ve overheard

the production manager say to a prospective new hire, “This job is just

to get some extra money.” When people have another job, they are less

likely to regard the part-time job as important enough to commit time to

organizing with others. A workforce becomes fragmented as part-timers

predominate. When people don’t see each other regularly, if at all; they

develop less of the cohesion that is natural to a group of people who

work together, and which is necessary for collective action.

The large number of part-timers lowers BG labor costs. Less than half of

the production staff worked the minimum 30 hours a week needed to

qualify for heath insurance. Low wages, minimal benefits and lousy

conditions tend to produce turnover. While I worked at the BG, the

average production employee stayed only eight months. Organization among

workers in small, low-wage business like the BG is more likely to

develop when there is a broader movement with which groups of workers in

particular workplaces can ally themselves. A non bureaucratic workers

movement, that is actually nut by rank-and-file workers themselves,

would not be as dependent on institutionalized contract bargaining to

have a presence in workplaces. This would make it easier for workers to

participate in the movement despite high turnover and movement from job

to job.

The Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) was an example of such a

movement in the earlier decades of this century. Many of the people who

worked in mines, aboard ships, on construction projects, and on farm

harvests in the Western states in those years moved around from job to

job. Nevertheless, the IWW was able to maintain effective organizations

in number of these industries despite the absence of a stable workforce.

The movement’s presence in a workplace didn’t depend upon a union

contract or government certification but on workers acting “in union”

with each other. Workers remained members of the union no matter where

they worked. And workers in one workplace were less isolated as they had

a sense of being part of a larger movement. The mix of occupations and

industries may be different today, but the failures of the top-down,

institutionalized unions show clearly the need for a new,

non-bureaucratic workers movement.