PMN Promises Newspapers Will Continue If Guild Strikes

The company that owns the Inquirer, Daily News, and Philly.com says it will continue to deliver the news even if the Newspaper Guild that journalists and other support staffers goes on strike.

The pledge by Philadelphia Media Network came in a Wednesday memorandum to employees, detailing progress it had made in negotiations with other unions at the company. The full memo is below.

Even if the guild strikes, the memo says, “we will continue to print and deliver important news, interesting features and valuable online content to serve the readers, subscribers and advertisers of The Philadelphia Inquirer, Daily News and Philly.com.”

A guild strike authorization vote could come next week. The contract between the union and PMN expires June 27.

See the full text:

You have been hearing quite a bit lately about the status of the collective bargaining process between PMN and the Newspaper Guild. We thought that this would be a good opportunity to provide you with an update as to the current status of bargaining with all of the Company’s unions. We are pleased to announce the following:

— The Photo Engravers and Operating Engineers have both ratified new three-year agreements.

— PMN has reached tentative agreements with the Pressmen, Composing, Electronic Techs, Paperhandlers and Mechanics unions.

— John Laigaie, President of Teamsters Local 628, and PMN negotiators concur that they are “nearing agreement” with the Drivers, Building Services and Security unions. PMN is also close to an agreement with the Machinists and is making steady progress with the Mailers.

The Company sincerely thanks all involved for working very hard to reach a resolution.

As a result of that work, we now have agreements or tentative agreements with 7 of the 12 trade unions, and five others are getting closer to an agreement. We remain optimistic that we will be able to finalize agreements very soon with all the trade unions.

With respect to the Guild, we will continue to bargain with the assistance of a federal mediator, who recommended this past Friday a 30-day contract extension to continue the bargaining process. Both sides agreed to that recommendation.

While the Guild has indicated that they may take a strike authorization vote as early as next week, rest assured that even if they do strike, we will continue to print and deliver important news, interesting features and valuable online content to serve the readers, subscribers and advertisers of The Philadelphia Inquirer, Daily News and Philly.com.