Unionization bid at Record Courier
The staff of the Kent-Ravenna Record Courier, probably the best
small newspaper in the 5-county area forever, formally filed to unionize into
the American Newpaper Guild.
Pay at the RC is so low that Gannett found it financially unwise to
furlough them because they paid them LESS to work there than they would pay to
lay them off the way Gannett has done to journalists across America.
The RC staff filed union authorization cards with the National
Labor Relations Board.
It asked Gannett to voluntarily recognize the union to save time,
effort and money.
Kaitlyn McGarvey
Bob Gaetjens
Diane Smith
Jeff Saunders
Jonah Rosenblum
Allen Moff
Lisa Scalfaro
Signed the notification to Gannett’s Michael Shearer, the Beacon Journal’s editor and Gannett’s regional editor, whose web site describes himself as “respected community leader and Rotarian.”
If he were a Rastafarian instead
of a Rotarian then Shearer could channel Bob Marley and adopt brotherhood,
oppose oppression and seek redemption by recognizing the RC union.
It would be sweeter than RC Cola if Gannett would take its knee off
the neck of its Record-Courier newsroom.
Gannett shipped 485 business-side jobs to India this year. After a
tsunami of furloughs in 2020.
But the Record-Courier journalists are paid so little that it wasn’t
worth Gannett’s paperwork to furlough them.
Garrett is listed among the worst companies in America to work for.
In today’s environment that’s an extremely low bar to slither under.
The Record-Courier was a successful and respected Dix family entity until 2017.
Then the inhumanity took hold.
The Record-Courier was born as the Ohio Star in 1830. In 1854 it
merged with the Home Companion and Whig to become the Portage County Democrat,
then was renamed in 1868 the bipolar Portage County Republican Democrat to
reflect its pro-Union stance during the Civil War when it, ironically
considering today’s situation, opposed slavery and slave wages.
In 1882 the paper bought the Portage County Republican and became
the Ravenna Republican. Starting in 1928 it continued its serial name-changing
till, in 1961, it became the Record-Courier.
Whew! A rose by any other name smells the same. So does today’s Record-Courier.
Let’s see if it stinks up Portage County with a union-busting
campaign.
