San Diego 432M is finding there's more than one way to skin a skunk.

"Stinky the skunk" is the mascot local members are using to let the people of San Diego know there is something smelly about the tactics of the Union-Tribune newspaper management. At rallies and informational picketing sites, the skunk is the focus of the effort to inform the public that Union-Tribune pressmen have been trying for more than seven years to negotiate a fair contract with management. The National Labor Relations Board is now considering 13 unfair labor practice complaints against the employer.

Local 432M started with demonstrations outside the newspaper and escalated to hiring an airplane to display a banner: "Union-Tribune, stop attacking working families" around San Diego at baseball games and the city's famous beaches.

But rallies and banners in the sky have a limited audience. The local, with help from Los Angeles 404M, jumped into the middle of the advertising age and developed a 60-second video spot as an ad for local cable television stations.

The local now sponsors the informational ad on a number of cable television channels, such as ESPN, the History Channel, the Discovery Channel, and local news channels, according to Local 432M Secy.-Treas. Jeffrey O. Alger.

The ads shows Alger and Local 432M member B.J. Maharaj and their families who tell how Union-Tribune managers have ruined what was once a friendly relationship between labor and management.

"We are running the ad 150 times a week on cable TV, and the Union-Tribune management can't handle the cancellations they are receiving," according to a fund-raising letter from Local 432M to other GCIU local unions. "We are fighting an employer who hasn't given us a raise in eight long years and has implemented working conditions that are bad for newspaper workers everywhere."

As soon as the ads started, there was an immediate reaction from supervisors in the form of suspensions of union pressmen on trumped-up charges. Alger said he spent 10 weeks on suspension in 1999, with the discipline suspiciously following pro-union activities.

After the cable ads started causing subscription cancellations, the bosses suspended Alger for allegedly failing to pick up quickly enough waste papers spilled on the pressroom floor.

Another management tactic was to demand that Maharaj work a 14-hour day. This was done although Maharaj had explained to the bosses he was diabetic and not supposed to work long shifts without medication. Management persisted and forced him to drive home for medication and return immediately.

The supervisors' hostility is compounded by the fact that the ads are successful. Alger estimated that the newspaper has lost about 30,000 subscribers as more and more citizens hear about the union's boycott.

So, the best way to bring the Union-Tribune managers back to the table to negotiate a fair contract is to continue the ads and force the bosses to reconsider whether union-busting is worth the lost circulation and advertising revenues, Alger added.

But cable advertising, though effective, is expensive. The local still needs more money to keep the ball rolling, he said.

Contributions can be sent to: Jeff Alger, financial secretary, Local 432M, 10393 San Diego Mission Rd., Suite 203, San Diego, Calif. 92108-2189.