Photo courtesy of San Francisco 4N San Francisco 4N members enjoy victory after a year-long struggle for a first contract for a new prepress unit at the Examiner and Independent newspapers. From left are Christian Rosales, Rebecca Bond, Jim Ramsey, John Horstman, Grant Corley, Michelle MacDonald, Local 4N Vice Pres. Edward Rosario, and Timm Sinclair.

San Francisco 4N won its year-long struggle for a first contract for a new prepress unit at the Examiner and Independent newspapers and welcomed a new unit of machinists and mailers at the Dow Jones plant in Palo Alto.

The Examiner and Independent are operated under the umbrella of ExIn LLC, which is owned by the Fang family. The Fangs bought the Examiner from the Hearst Corp. in March 2000 when Hearst bought the San Francisco Chronicle.

After the purchase, which was subsidized by Hearst, publisher Florence Fang pledged there would never be a union at the Examiner and brought in the notorious law firm King and Ballow. But Local 4N overwhelmingly won the representation election for a prepress unit of about 25 people.

When contract talks appeared to be going nowhere, Local 4N launched a campaign with the assistance of the San Francisco Labor Council and area unions. The campaign became part of the council’s “labor to neighbor” program. The Service Employees provided facilities for phone banking, and the unions put up banners at seven check points around the city to publicize the campaign. The council also sought and received a resolution of support from the San Francisco Board of Supervisors.

Local 4N Vice Pres. Edward Rosario said the effort paid off. “Our campaigns were quite successful. Plus [ExIn] has a contract for Board of Supervisor notices. We came up with a proposition to stop that and it scared them. Plus our attorney David Rosenfeld did an amazing job at the bargaining table. [Management] said they were exhausted and they wanted a contract with us. They backed off trying to take us to impasse. At that point they brought in federal mediation and we worked it out,” Rosario said.

The contract, which was ratified unanimously, provides a union security closed shop and good arbitration and grievance procedures, Rosario said. It also provides a 5 percent wage increase, a $2,500 signing bonus, and job guarantees until July 1, when the Hearst subsidy expires, he said.

Rosario said the company held fast to limiting the contract to one year because of the subsidy expiration while the local would have preferred a longer contract. “But it gives us another day to fight,” he said.

Rosario said chapel chair Grant Corley deserves a great deal of credit for the success, adding: “A lot of this would not have been possible if not for Grant,” who also serves as the unit’s lead scale committee representative.

At the Dow Jones Wall Street Journal plant in Palo Alto, a unit of eight machinists and mailers voted unanimously on Jan. 2 for representation by Local 4N. The local already had a contract in the pressroom there.

Rosario said members of the unit went to Local 4N area representative Paul Kolter, who works in the plant, to inquire about organizing. The local then set up meetings for the unit to discuss the possibilities and issues.

The key issues for the unit, Rosario said, were the “incessant harassment” by a new supervisor and the fact that two people in the mail room were counted as part-time workers and provided no benefits despite working as many hours as full-time workers.

“They wanted to work in an harassment-free environment,” Rosario said. “The solution was to organize.”

Rosario said the local and management already have begun negotiations, and management has given the impression of wanting to reach a first contract quickly.