Guild Membership Ratifies Agreement With Sun BALTIMORE, MD (wypr) - BODY:

Only Guild members were allowed in the Pearlstone Theater at Center Stage for the discussion and vote, but the voice vote could be heard from the Lobby.

TAPE: (6 SECONDS) -- The Vote. - Sound

Lynn Anderson Guild Mobilizer for the News Room, after the vote, said that

TAPE: (9 SECONDS) Lynn Anderson - as good as it gets
IC: The Majority of the people in that room that that this was really as good as it was going to get, that we needed to take it and move forward, we needed to do it for the Sun; we needed to do it for Baltimore.

Going into the final stretch there were a few stubborn issues. One was how to allocate yearly raises. That was solved by adopting a formula that will make about half the yearly raise automatic with the rest allocated according to performance evaluations. Some pension and sick leave issues were also resolved.

The biggest problem was whether photographers could be required to report stories, and reporters required to take pictures while reporting. Amy Davis voted no on the agreement, she is an award-winning photographer who has been with the Sun for 20 years. She reads from a Company bulletin she received during the negotiations.

TAPE: (23 SECONDS) Amy - no quality vote no
IC: 'Balancing the need for quantity with the desire for quality, means that if we can get basic, but multi-media friendly images from reporters on certain stories means we won't have to send our regular photographers to cover those stories' Once I read that sentence I knew in my heart that I could not vote for this contract, because what this says is quality is not what counts.

The contract attempts to address the concerns of reporters and photographers by providing that no reporter can be reprimanded or disciplined for taking bad pictures, and it cannot be considered in their job evaluations. There will also be a Management-Guild committee setup to address issues that come up in implementing the change.

Nonetheless, photographer Davis is worried about job security.

TAPE: (5 SECONDS) Amy - layoffs - short
IC: They should have put in language saying there would be no layoffs as a result of this change. Down the road as photographers retire, or leave for any reason will the company feel motivated to hire more photojournalists? Or will they just look for a reporter who can turn the On button on, on the cameras.

The spokesperson for Sun management, Linda Yurshe, says photographers should not be worried about their jobs.

TAPE: (11 SECONDS) Linda Yurshe - photo jobs safe
IC: That was not the intention of the company to in any way threaten the jobs of photo journalists. The fact is what we are saying is we need more pictures so it would be foolish of us to start laying off photographers.

Indeed the Sun management position is that flexibility to give cameras to reporters and notepads to photographers, along with other protections in the contract will have a positive effect on the product produced by the Baltimore Sun.

TAPE: (11 SECONDS) Linda Yurshe - photo effect
IC: Yes, it is going to absolutely have an effect, and the effect will be that we will get increased levels of photographs, we'll get new multi-media to meet the demand that our readers have to meet the demand for pictures as well as words.

All in all, the Sun management is pleased with the contract.

TAPE: (16 SECONDS) Linda Yurshe - Sun Happy
IC: We are very gratified that the Guild approved the agreement tonight by a voice vote and we are looking forward to using the increased flexibility that the Company has achieved in this contract to deal with the very challenging times newspapers are facing these days.

Columnist and Guild member Dan Rodericks may have summed-up pretty well how the average Guild member feels about this contract as he left the meeting.

TAPE: (6 SECONDS) Rodericks - not too bad
IC: It's not bad. Compared to what we hear about other newspapers in other cities, this is not too bad.



I'm Art Buist reporting in downtown Baltimore for 88-1, WYPR.

© Copyright 2010, wypr