Save Our Trade: Courtesy Call with a Threat on the Side

By Ronnie Pineda

Keith and I both received a "courtesy call" from Russ yesterday in which he wanted to point out section 3.1 in the contract which is copied in it's entirety below. After reading it again I knew where he was headed based on previous conversations pertaining to our performance and specifically start times since last weeks ratification. In yesterdays conversation he had with Keith and I, he claimed to have evidence that certain individuals are violating the agreement in Article 3.1 No Strike/No Lockout and that he will exercise the language in paragraph (c) and terminate any employee who "he thinks" is participating in activities that violate the language in the opening paragraph (a).

I suggest, no, I INSIST everyone read it very carefully because Russ is making a serious threat. Several operators are currently suspected of such activity and Keith, to both of our surprise is one of them. I cannot accept this accusation against our operators especially Keith simply because we share the same work ethics and do not take our trade or our jobs for granted. At the time of this post the names of the other operators in L.A. was unbeknownst to me and I can only say, no one became an operator or continues to be one if they didn't share those same work ethics.

Russ asked if the Union sanctioned a "Work to Rule" implying that everyone was told to do their job by the book to cause an intentional work slowdown. First of all, Russ should want all of us to do our jobs by the book for obvious reasons such as safety, quality and efficiency. The assumption on his part that the Union or anyone else has called for this type of activity is totally false and sanctioned by no one. There is no way I, or anyone from the International would ask any of our Brothers and Sisters to jeopardize their career by intentionally causing delays to the production of our newspaper in violation of the agreement below. Our priority, I told Russ was to get a quality paper out on the street, on time. To do otherwise would be like shooting ourselves in the foot.

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