Thursday, July 16, 2009
Union Says "Commercial Appeal" Considering Outsourcing Printing to Tupelo
Posted by Flyer Staff on Thu, Jul 16, 2009 at 11:50 AM
Connolly's letter to guild members: The Commercial Appeal’s management informed us recently that the company is considering outsourcing its print operations to a yet-to-be-built facility in Tupelo, Miss. It would stop printing the newspaper at 495 Union Ave.
This would lead to significant job losses here in Memphis. We don’t have the exact number.
We are exploring options for the 11 workers covered under The Newspaper Guild’s contract and have a meeting scheduled on July 23 with the company.
The background:
The printing workers are covered by three different unions: the mailers, the pressmen and The Memphis Newspaper Guild, of which I am president. Both the mailers and pressmen are associated with the International Brotherhood of Teamsters.
We are cooperating with the other unions as these talks move forward. The Commercial Appeal’s director of operations, Stephen Tomb, described the proposal to outsource the print operations in a June 24 letter to the pressmen.
“As you and the other pressmen are aware, the press equipment at The Commercial Appeal continues to age . . . We believe further capital investment at our current production facility is not the most efficient use of the Company’s resources.”
He estimates that improvements would cost $23 to $26 million and that buying a new press would cost $40 million.
The Commercial Appeal would outsource the work to Journal Publishing Company Inc., which publishes The Northeast Mississippi Daily Journal and several community newspapers.
According to Tomb’s letter, Journal Publishing Company needs a response from The Commercial Appeal by Aug. 15 so it can include The Commercial Appeal’s printing needs in its design for the plant, which would be ready in 12 to 15 months.
We’ll have plenty of questions for the company at the July 23 meeting, and we’ll pass along more information to you shortly thereafter. Please check this site for updates.
Sincerely,
Daniel Connolly, Memphis Newpaper Guild President
Related Stories
-
Newspaper Guild Concerned About Possible CA Press Outsourcing
After meeting with Commercial Appeal management, the Memphis Newspaper Guild has expressed concerns that a proposal to outsource the newspaper's printing to a company in Tupelo could affect up to 115 jobs, and make newspaper delivery unreliable ...
- Jul 24, 2009
Comments (6)
Showing 1-6 of 6
Do they even deliver the CA in Tupelo?
Oh, I forgot. Delivering out in the territories isn't cost efficient. Yet printing the thing in Tupelo and shipping it back to Memphis in big old gas guzzling trucks is?
How green can you get?
This appears to be less about saving money and more about busting unions. If this goes through, I would not be surprised to see the CA up for sale or shut down w/in 6 months.
like
dislike
B, I'm gathering information on this now, but can say with some certainty that while busting unions may be a result, it's not necessarily the aim. And maybe not even a result. If the presses need to be updated it may be more cost efficient to outsource the paper. That doesn't mean the existing presses will be shut down completely since the publishing company can still take on revenue-generating projects that may not require state of the art equipment. There's not enough hard information available to make a call either way but at this point there's no reason (well, other the precedent) to assume the worst.
Real questions: How will this impact deadlines, the product, home delivery? There's a big difference between rolling trucks from Union to the distribution centers, and rolling them from Tupelo. It may signal a move to fewer editions a week, or a change in editorial policy regarding the currency of print edition content.
So this could mean many things both good and not so good. No need to assume nefarious intentions or certain death.
So you're saying that past performance is no indicator of future outcome?
hahaha!
THIS WEEK'S ISSUE
SPECIAL ISSUES
