Guild, Union-Tribune Still Stalled; More Talks Friday

Negotiators for the San Diego Newspaper Guild and the Union-Tribune Publishing Co. spent nearly six hours at the bargaining table Wednesday and agreed to meet again Friday in an effort to break a stalemate over a new labor contract.

Wednesday’s negotiating session, the first since Dec. 22, was arranged by a state mediator who has been trying to resolve the labor dispute for about a year. The mediator carried contract proposals between the two negotiating teams that remained in separate rooms.

The mediation session failed to bring the two sides closer on major areas of disagreement, local Guild President Ed Jahn said. However, negotiators made enough progress on minor issues to warrant an additional session on Friday, Jahn said.

The talks, which began at 1:30 p.m., were suspended at about 7 p.m. The two sides will meet at 9:30 a.m. on Friday at the Hyatt Islandia.

Negotiators have met about 60 times over the past 22 months but have been unable to reach agreement on a contract for about 1,150 guild employees. The old contract expired in June, 1988. The guild represents reporters, photographers and employees in the advertising, circulation, library and maintenance departments.

On Dec. 22, guild leaders offered what they described as a major concession in an unsuccessful effort to reach agreement on a new contract. However, those daylong negotiations failed to produce an agreement on several issues, including the contract’s length. Management has insisted upon a one-year contract while the guild is seeking a three-year agreement.

Guild members authorized a strike against the newspaper company in an emotional and fiery meeting last month. The San Diego-Imperial Counties Labor Council announced that it will mobilize support for Union-Tribune employees if they strike.

Eliseo Medina, president of the Service Employees International Union, Local 102, said union leaders will try to get 10,000 union families or more to cancel their subscriptions if there is a strike at the Union-Tribune Publishing Co. Medina said there are about 100,000 families in San Diego County that have at least one wage earner belonging to a union.