Breaking: Strike You Don’t Care About Gets An Extension In Which You Can Begin To Care Even Less
From the Inky:
The owners of The Inquirer, the Philadelphia Daily News and philly.com and leaders of 10 unions at the papers today agreed to a 30-day extension of contract talks, citing progress in the months-long negotiations.
After the jump, the Guild memo that preceded it. Ooh, look, A GUILD MEMO!
Contract Extension Under Consideration
October 30, 2006
Federal mediator Walt Bednarczyk has asked the parties to extend the contract and allow negotiations for a new agreement to extend beyond the midnight Oct. 31 deadline. The Guild agreed at tonight’s session. The company is expected to respond tomorrow.
The extension request followed a bargaining session tonight at which the Company responded to the Guild’s advertising counterproposals, including a merged seniority list and maintaining minimum commission base. The Company responses led to more questions by the Guild that the Company is now researching. The Guild also presented newsroom proposals regarding, among many things, New Media, combining editorial functions of the Inquirer and Daily News, and rolling the Suburban Writers and Photographers into the Main Unit.
With contracts with several unions still outstanding, the Company said it had no time available to bargain with the Guild Tuesday, but might have time Wednesday. Should an extension be granted, all terms and conditions of the current contract will remain in effect.
Meanwhile, members of the Guild bargaining committee plan to meet with the mediator Tuesday to continue working on proposals to reach a settlement with the Company.
October 31st, 2006 at 3:30 pm
Translation: “I don’t know about you guys, but my wife is screaming at me because it’s my turn to take the kid out for candy. I gotta get home before she really freaks out.”