Former Guild president Linda Foley on the BJ sale

post sent to Paula A. Schleis from Linda Foley, former pres. Of the Newspaper Guild.


1. Even though Gatehouse doesn’t have to accept the contract, they do have to recognize the union once a majority of the new workforce is composed of workers from the former employer, the union is considered the representative of employees in the new workforce. (Because the Beacon is a daily newspaper, this is a likely scenario.). That means working conditions cannot be changed without the union’s agreement. An obligation to bargain a new contract also attaches. I know that’s not much consolation for losing hard-fought benefits, but it does mean you are not powerless.

2. Health insurance — They are obligated by law to continue your insurance for 18 months (I think) after the “qualifying” event that caused you to lose your benefits. You must pay the premiums, but it would be at the group rate. You do not have to pay a premium until 45 days after the “qualifying” event.

3. Any grievances, unfair labor practice charges, EEO charges, etc. attach to the new employer if they are not resolved before the hand-off.

4. Any “anti-union animus” demonstrated by the employer in its “hiring” should be called out and prosecuted.

Wandering wonderings of a worrywart

Reading tea leaves is rather tricky, particularly in a scary situation like Gatehouse Media’s $16 million purchase of the BJ and Ohio.com.

But I’ll have a go at it, from the relative safety of 22 years of BJ retirement and 85 years of age. The undertaker might get me before Gatehouse does.

First warning sign: Gatehouse is taking a SHORT-term lease on the 44 E. Exchange Street building, which still is owned by Canadian Black Press.

That means the BJ, down to 165 full-time employees (the newsroom alone had more than that the day I retired in 1996), and without a printing press for years, can move and become a storefront newspaper.

Will editor Bruce Winges keep his job a year or so down the road? New owners like to have their people running the show after the old management shows them the ropes.

More than 60 Gatehouse Media Ohio publications and websites reach more than 4.2 million adults a month in Ohio. So one voice can pretty well tell the citizens what it wants them to know.

Diverse media sites are a good thing for democracy.

Gatehouse will make take-it-or-leave job offers to current Ol’ Blue Walls employees. That sounds like more pay cuts for a group that already has taken financial hits in recent years.

BJ workers have to decide before May whether to accept whatever Gatehouse offers or leave.

Pittsford, N.Y.-based Gatehouse itself emerged from Chapter 11 bankruptcy in 2013 and expanded exponentially to than 140 daily newspapers. In a business sector that has gone from cash cows to survival mode. That can be a house of cards that tumble overnight.

John Knight took his father’s heavily in debt newspaper and grew it into 32 newspapers and 18,000 employees. Ancient, but beloved history.

JSK always felt, and often said, that its people are what made Ol’ Blue Walls and Knight Newspapers great.

Let’s hope the new owners realize that.

Four Pulitzers didn’t happen by accident.

Columnist Bob Dyer, for example, is almost automatic for Ohio Columnist of the Year nearly every year.

Mark J. Price plumbs area history with aplomb.

Paula Schleis, Cheryl Powell, Betty Lin-Fisher, Doug Livingston, Michael Douglas and Katie Byard are assets every newspaper needs.

And that’s just off the top of my head.

I admire the troops; I don't trust management once JSK left the building.

Hopefully, Greathouse won’t go with those who will work the cheapest instead of those who can continue the glory that has been the Beacon Journal for a century or so.

Stay tuned. The cat eventually will be out of the bag.

Sad BJ sale day

The BJ has been sold to Gatehouse Media, continuing the ownership degradation that began when John Shively Knight immersed his empire with the less-than-stellular Ridder roustabouts.

The BJ was born in 1897 when the Summit Beacon merged with the Akron Evening Journal.

In 1903 Charles Landon Knight purchased the BJ. In 1933 C.L.’s son, John Knight, inherited the BJ when his father died.

It was heavily in debt. JSK built it into the successful and highly regarded Knight Newspapers where winning Pulitzers was NOT a rare event (the BJ won four during my 26 years there).

Knight and Ridder merged in 1974, becoming the largest newspaper group in America.

By 2006, without JSK’s guidance, KRI was sold to McClatchy and the BJ became the Canadian Black Press’ property.

The $16 million sale to Greathouse is the culmination of going from JSK’s brilliant protection to a string of owners who couldn’t carry Shively’s jockstrap.

This is NO reflection on those who work at the BJ today, or since my 1996 retirement. It is a tale of what happens when a company goes from a guy who respected all his employees more than the bottom line to those who don’t in today’s desperate newspapers situations.

Want proof?

A Gatehouse official pronounced this menacing and frightening thought:

"We are not accepting labor agreements."

Gatehouse can do that because it's an "assets sale." Doesn't get any more impersonal than that.

Gatehouse owns 142 newspapers, including the Canton Repository, Kent/Ravenna Record-Courier, Alliance Review and the Wooster Daily Record.


RIP, Ol’ Blue Walls. We knew ye well. And loved the hell out of ye.