Sherman Miller, left, and vocalist Jennifer Randell perform their new labor song.
A labor song written and performed by two members of the Repository Guild unit of the Northeast Ohio Newspaper Guild-CWA, Local 1, was the highlight of a recent community rally in Canton, Ohio, one of many actions the local has taken to draw attention to their fight.
The workers' GateHouse Media-owned newspaper, The Repository, wants to outsource up to one-fourth of the Guild bargaining unit – as many as 45 jobs – and turn up to another 20 full-time jobs into part-time ones.
Bernie Lunzer, president of The Newspaper Guild sector of the Communications Workers of America, was the keynote speaker. Also addressing the rally was Dan Sciury, longtime president of the Hall of Fame Central Labor Council, AFL-CIO. About 50 people attended the rally on the downtown Canton square on a warm, sunny afternoon. Many at the rally sported black Guild T-shirts with “Keep Repository jobs local” printed on the back in red letters.
The new song, “People Just Like Me,” was performed by Guild members Jennifer Randell on vocals and Sherman Miller on guitar. The song touches on the struggles of workers to make ends meet and the threats they face from decisions by “corporate giants” that can ruin all they’ve worked to achieve. Randell wrote the lyrics and Miller the music. The duo also performed other labor songs and some rock songs from the 1960s. Randell is a classified telephone salesperson and Miller is a dispatcher in the traffic department at The Repository.
The rally, which was well supported by the local labor community, was timed to coincide with the GateHouse shareholders’ meeting in Rochester, N.Y. Two Guild members attended the meeting: Shannon Duffy, administrative officer of the United Media Workers-CWA Local 36047, based in St. Louis, and Phil Luciano, president of the Peoria, Ill., Guild unit. Peoria, like Canton, is facing outsourcing of bargaining unit employees.
Lunzer told the crowd at the Canton rally how newspapers are hurting themselves by cutting jobs to boost short-term profits, and then how that ends up hurting the communities those newspaper are supposed to serve. Sciury recounted Guild problems with The Repository’s various owners dating back 40 years, and pledged the support of the labor community. Local 1 President Bob George and Executive Secretary Rollie Dreussi also spoke at the rally.
Rally attendees were encouraged to follow the situation on the internet by searching “savetherepository” to find the Guild unit’s Facebook page. The Northeast Ohio local also ran almost of week of radio ads leading up to the rally to inform the community about the Employer’s regressive bargaining proposals and the impact they could have on subscribers, advertisers and the community.
The Repository is proposing to change contract language to allow it to outsource jobs in several departments, including delivery truck drivers and mechanics, maintenance workers, single copy, advertising artists and ad services workers, and business office clerks. Another proposal would turn almost two-thirds of the full-time workers in the mail room into part-timers with few benefits.