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'INSIDE STRATEGY': WASHINGTON POST BYLINE STRIKES

by Aaron Brenner

[Author's note: An "inside strategy" means that workers try to inflict economic damage on a company without going on strike, usually as part of a contract campaign to make gains at the bargaining table. They can disrupt production, undermine management control on the shop floor, and hurt company profits—while still on the job. Such inside strategies are not easy, but they can be better than walking out, especially when the company is prepared for a strike.

Inside strategies require a union that is well organized in the workplace. The main tactic is usually "working to rule." Once the contract expires, everything can change.

Here we tell the story of one inside strategy at the Washington Post and then turn to the acknowledged master of the inside strategy, Jerry Tucker, for some general advice. For much more on this subject, see Chapter 10 of A Troublemaker's Handbook 2.]

by Aaron Brenner

For two days in June and five days in October 2002, virtually every reporter at the Washington Post withheld his or her byline from every single article that appeared in the paper.

"It was a real thrill to see those papers, day after day, completely devoid of bylines," says Rick Weiss, national science reporter and co-chair of the Newspaper Guild unit at the Post. "It was a great reminder that you don't have to be passive and hope the company will come around. People are still talking about it as some of the best days of the year."

The byline strikes in 2002 were the centerpieces of an inside strategy aimed at winning a better contract and a stronger union at the Post. The Guild contract expired in May 2002, and in January 2001 the Guild started preparing workers for an inside strategy. Simultaneously the union began a recruitment drive at the open-shop Post. The Guild, an affiliate of the Communications Workers (CWA), represented about 525 of the 1,400 union-eligible workers when it began recruiting.

As the union prepared for contract talks, it also prepared its inside strategy. Leaders never considered a strike. "The recent history of newspaper strikes in this country is not pretty," notes Weiss. "Look at Detroit and Seattle. In the current political climate, it would not have been fair to members to go down that road. Also, the unit structure at the Post leaves enough people outside the unit so that the company could probably get the paper out with its non-union employees."

OUTSIDE TACTICS
When talks began, the Post wanted a tiny pay increase, vacation cutbacks, and "some real union-busting language designed to weaken membership rules." The union created a mobilizing committee to work with the bargaining committee on strategy. One of their first tactics was weekly informational picketing by union members and Mr. Peanut (a member in a costume he'd found on E-Bay), who symbolized the stinginess of management's offer. Workers from other unions around the city also participated in the pickets, which included balloons, posters, signs, and songs written for the occasion.

To win public support, the union began a subscription boycott pledge campaign. At Washington area subway stops, the headquarters of national unions, and community events, including some sponsored by the Post, workers handed out pledge cards asking readers to cancel their subscriptions if the union failed to win a fair contract. Thousands of people signed the cards, says the local's organizer, Calvin Zon.

Meanwhile, regular bulletins were keeping newsroom workers—members and non-members—informed about negotiations. "Workers were well educated about how far apart we were," says Weiss. "People were pretty well radicalized, too, because the company had put forward some onerous demands."

STRAW POLL
To make it clear how angry all the workers were about the company's intransigence, the mobilizing and bargaining committees called for a two-day byline strike in June 2002, about two weeks after the old contract expired. By September, with little progress at the bargaining table, the committees decided to call another byline strike, this time for five days.

"We wanted to let the company know that it wasn't just ten of us on the bargaining committee who were unwilling to accept the offer," says Weiss. "The byline strike would act as a straw poll."

To win support, the committees printed up bulletins, made phone calls, and walked the newsroom talking to reporters. The union decided email was off limits as an organizing tool, since management disputed the workers' right to use it for union business. "We were dependent on low-tech communications strategies, which makes the result all the more impressive," notes Weiss. The Post has hundreds of editorial employees throughout the world. The bargaining and mobilizing committee reached every one of them via phone.

The byline strike required active participation: to withhold a byline, a reporter had to put a note at the top of the article when he or she filed it with the editor. If the reporter did nothing, the byline would be printed.

Participation in both strikes was virtually unanimous. Even the hundreds of journalists who were not union members participated. "Some people argued that readers do not notice bylines," says Zon. "But Post managers notice bylines. Lobbyists notice. Government officials notice. It got people's attention and the Post wrote about it in its news pages. Even Ari Fleischer, the White House spokesman, took to calling the Post reporter 'staff writer from the Washington Post' during press briefings."

According to the Post itself, the paper's switchboard logged at least 200 calls by noon on the first day of the first byline strike. Most were from upset readers who wondered why their favorite columnists were not in the paper. Some readers who wanted to talk to writers about stories in the paper were angry because they didn't know whom to call.

Most important, the unanimity of the strike demonstrated and reinforced the level of commitment among the workers. "The byline strikes allowed everyone who was affected to do something to influence the negotiations," says Weiss.

WITHHOLD VOLUNTARY LABOR
Two other tactics had an impact on the Post. In conjunction with the byline strike, the Guild asked reporters to stop writing versions of their stories for the Post's website. "We had been increasingly asked, on a 'voluntary' basis, to file our stories early so they could be put on the newspaper's website before they were printed in the paper," says Weiss. "It is essentially a speed-up with no extra compensation. We called for the workers not to offer this voluntary labor. That really did piss off management, because unlike the byline strike, not filing stories for the web actually affected the quality of journalism by reducing the website's content and immediacy. We kept up the web strike for many weeks, far longer than the byline strike."

Less seriously, reporters used a newsroom custom--the cake party--to build solidarity. "It was an old tradition," explains Weiss. "On special occasions, like birthdays and anniversaries, management would bring in a cake. We decided, usually during the byline strikes, at deadline time, to bring in a big sheet cake and have a cake party, just like management does. Only our party celebrated our unity in fighting for a better contract. That stopped work, while everyone chatted and we told them about the negotiations and the union."

Post management eventually improved its pay offer and moved on the union security question, though not as far as the workers had hoped. Still, it was enough that the bargaining committee could recommend a settlement. And the inside strategy had one more good result: the union recruited 275 new members.

KEY ELEMENTS OF AN INSIDE STRATEGY
Every workplace is different, so every inside strategy must be different. Nevertheless, Jerry Tucker of the Workers Education Center, who helped workers formulate winning inside strategies at several workplaces in the 1980s and 1990s, tells us that some key elements must be in place:

1. Willing leadership. "Union leaders must at least accept the inside strategy. Even if they are not enthusiastic, they must not get in the way. Where they are hostile, perhaps there is a way for rank-and-file workers to just take over, but I have not seen that."

2. Horizontal leadership. "Union leaders must be willing to make the rank and file co-equal when it comes to deciding strategy and tactics. This is a challenge for many union leaders, but without rank-and-file involvement in decision-making and execution, an inside strategy will not work."

3. Critical mass. "You must be able to count on a critical mass of workers, a group large enough to realistically mobilize the bulk of the members. You will never have 100 percent participation at the start, but with a critical mass of committed workers you can build the necessary solidarity."

4. Collective intelligence gathering. "The workers come up with the best ideas for reducing the company's productivity and raising its costs, the two main goals of any work-to-rule. The leaders have to find ways to get the rank and file generating ideas. And I'm not talking about surveys. I mean meeting with workers, asking them questions, making suggestions, and listening."

5. Galvanizing activities. "These are activities that do not directly affect production but facilitate other activities that do, by getting more workers involved, increasing their confidence, and boosting morale. These can be as simple as lunchtime rallies or meeting with other unions to involve them in the cause."

6. Outreach. "To directly affect productivity you can reach out to workers at your company's customers and suppliers. They might forget to ship supplies, or they might discover defects in your products. They can also pressure their company to stop dealing with your company. Outreach also means pressuring your company's parent company in a corporate campaign. And it means reaching out to the local community: churches, unions, and other groups."

7. Keeping it going. "Inside strategies take time. We say, 'Let's just get through this week and we'll figure out something for next week.' You cannot go into a defensive crouch for a week or two. You'll lose the workers. You have to keep a flow of activity going. You can do that, in part, by workers having ownership of the campaign. They'll think of ideas that will keep them going."

8. Hardship fund. "In every single in-plant campaign I've worked on, we raised money to pay workers if they were fired. We assessed the workers themselves and we collected money externally. This is a key element in getting workers to feel comfortable with taking more risks on the job."

"Sometimes, many of these elements come together. A group of Staley workers went up to Canada to address a meeting of the Canadian Auto Workers. This was one of those 'keep it going' activities that was also 'outreach.' The workers at the meeting donated $10,000 on the spot and the union agreed to match that amount from its treasury. That built the hardship fund. The trip also became a 'galvanizing activity' when the workers came back to Decatur and reported the support they received."

[Aaron Brenner is a labor historian, researcher, writer, and editor in New York City. He has written about international labor solidarity, union reform movements, and rank-and-file rebellions by Teamsters, telephone workers, and postal workers, and is the editor of The Encyclopedia of Strikes in American History. He authored the chapter on Inside Strategies for A Troublemaker's Handbook 2.]