Wednesday, September 26, 2007

Save Our Trade: Ego VS The Law

By Ronnie Pineda

Most of you should have received our recent mailing highlighting our current status. I personally reviewed all current mailing information provided by the company and revised our database, so if anyone fails to receive it, it is because they do not have current information on file with the company or the union.

We do have confirmed negotiation dates beginning in November and are prepared to negotiate in good faith for our members. The committee members are aware of the contract draft contents and can dispell any rumors that may surface regarding it's contents. As stated in the letter, this can take some time, so patience and solidarity are priority number one.

Our major concern at this time is Johnny Walkers treatment of pressroom employees in Los Angeles. One of our main concerns, and probably the most serious is that it appears our African American Community in the pressroom are predominantly in his crosshairs and have been subjected to his disrepectful treatment and diciplinary targeting. This is a very disturbing fact and this fact will be further investigated by our attorneys. I am attempting to schedule a meeting with some of our members and The NAACP to get their impression of these obvious statistics and solicit their support in bringing this to managements attention.

Click on link below to continue reading Ronnie Pineda.

Save Our Trade: Ego VS The Law

3 comments:

Edward Padgett said...

Ronnie, I would like to share an incident that occurred on my crew last Friday, September 21st, 2007 at about 1:20 p.m. on C Press at the Olympic Facility.

As we prepared the printing press for the San Fernando Valley zone edition my phone on the press rang, the caller, from another press crew, said my crewmembers needed my assistance. Before I departed for the reel room, I told my 1st and 2nd color men I would be downstairs helping out.

When I arrived downstairs I was taken by the presence of a pressroom supervisor, sitting on the bench facing my press crew reading the newspaper. This particular supervisor walks through the reel room frequently, but has never sat down to read the newspaper, so it was not a normal occurrence.

As I went to each crew member, three of the four felt he was watching them personally, looking for any fault or error as reason to write them up, and take away any raise that we may or may not get next year.

The crewmembers working on my press in the reel room this particular day were Evelyn Williams, Al Clark, Edward Young, and David Green, all four are African Americans.

This may be nothing, and the supervisor in question, could have been just reading the newspaper as he stated, but certainly makes one wonder what’s going on at the Los Angeles Times Pressroom?

Especially if you’re black!

Chef Debi said...

I'm guessing that picture taken of Mr. Kirby with Mr. Walker must have been difficult, at best, for Mr. Walker to take????

Gees, 2007 and all is still the same in America...sad, sad commentary.

Old OC said...

"Gees, 2007 and all is still the same in America...sad, sad commentary."

Yup your right.....

Tell me, now that Durham County D.A., Mike Nifong, has resigned and been disbarred, will Mr. Jackson & Mr. Sharpton apologize to the three innocent defendants?

Gees, 2007 and all is still the same in America...sad, sad commentary.