Chronicle staffers have taken it on the chin in recent years as the newspaper has continued to hemorrhage financially, and they’re pushing back now that Hearst Corp. wants employees to chip in more for their health care. Here’s the memo posted today at the Pacific Media Workers Guild website, after the jump:
We, the employees of the San Francisco Chronicle, have had enough.
We love this newspaper, and we’ve worked hard since the layoffs of 2009 to help keep it afloat. We’ve done everything Hearst demanded: sacrificing pay raises, giving up seniority, losing vacation time and holidays, even working through what used to be our paid lunch hour.
For years, we’ve been working twice as hard with a smaller staff — doing everything needed to keep this paper relevant and great.
And this is how the highly profitable Hearst Corporation pays us back.
In our ongoing Guild contract negotiations, Hearst continues to insist that we shoulder huge increases for our health plan. Even offset by a meager proposed raise, this amounts to a pay cut of hundreds or thousands of dollars a year for most of us.
We love the Chronicle, and we love journalism, but we can’t keep donating our own livelihoods to increase the profits of our corporate owners.
Help us tell Hearst that San Francisco deserves better.
Art: Perspective on Hearst Corp.’s proposed health care give-backs, from Pacific Media Workers Guild website
