Newspaper & Mailroom

Bloomington employees reject union

Monday 29. December 2008 - Employees of The Pantagraph, the Lee Enterprises (NYSE: LEE) newspaper in Bloomington, have voted 37-5 to defeat a two-year organization attempt by the St. Louis Guild.

The election, conducted Wednesday by the National Labor Relations Board, involved 42 employees from creative services, prepress, technical services, maintenance, packaging and distribution. News, sales and circulation employees had earlier rebuffed organization attempts by the St. Louis unit of The Newspaper Guild, Communication Workers of America.

“This overwhelming rejection of these outsiders, especially during challenging economic times, expresses a powerful vote of confidence in our family at The Pantagraph,” said Richard Johnston, publisher. “With a substantially union-free environment, we will have the clear ability to safeguard the most vital elements of the Lee Enterprises culture — direct and open communication, a one-to-one working relationship between employees and supervisors, a climate of trust and teamwork, the ability for all of us to deal with each other honestly and fairly, and recognition of individual achievement.”

Vytenis Kuraitis, Lee vice president for human resources, said Lee employees have historically rejected unions. “Over the last several decades, as a result of good working environments, our employees eliminated all unions in 18 locations. The only unions that exist in Lee today were inherited in our more recent acquisitions. The reason is that, throughout Lee, we strive to provide consistently strong, fair leadership so our employees feel no need for union representation.”

He said the Guild and several other unions currently represent 8.5 percent of Lee’s 9,000 employees, primarily in St. Louis.