Journalist Union End Game for Chronicle Could Be Purchase

"In 16 months," said Carl Hall, local Guild representative at The Chronicle, "we should be talking about buy in and not buy-outs."

In an interview Tuesday, Hall was looking past the painful week of negotiations that produced the tentative agreement on concessions that Chronicle publisher Hearst had been demanding under threat of a sale or closure of the 144-year-old paper.

"We are working on it," Hall said. "We hope to form an investor group that would be prepared to step in."

Under the deal, technically an amendment to the existing labor contract ending in June 2010, the Guild agrees to suspend seniority protections to allow Hearst wide latitude in job cuts expected to reduce the combined editorial and advertising union workforce by about 150 employees, decreasing the headcount from 480 to 230 workers.

Hall said Hearst management indicated it would be making more than half of those reductions in the newsroom, perhaps aiming to pare the unionized team of reporters, editors, photographers and designers of about 220 down to fewer than 150.

Meanwhile, Guild members would relinquish a week of vacation, reducing the maximum paid vacation-leave each year to three weeks.

New restrictions would cap sick leave at 20 days per year.

Hall said he anticipates the newspaper's non-union editorial workforce would sustain job losses in proportionate numbers

Under the tentative agreement, workers taking buyouts or who are involuntarily laid off would receive severance of two weeks pay for every year of employment at The Chronicle and the formerly Hearst-owned Examiner. Non-union workers are expected to receive the same deal.

Hall wouldn't say who the Guild was talking to about teaming up to purchase the organization from Hearst, but said the new ownership of the The Chronicle could be structured as a nonprofit.

Hall observed that even these job and compensation cuts don't come close to being enough to close annual losses at the paper of more than $50 million, and the union needs to "prepare for the next step."

Chronicle publisher Frank Vega issued a statement to the newspaper's employees Tuesday applauding the tentative labor agreement announced by the Guild Monday evening.

Vega called the tentative deal an "important step toward our goal of making The Chronicle financially viable. The next step will be a vote by the Guild membership this week."

But, if Hall has his way, it might be the steps ahead that prove really interesting.