{
"type": "rich",
"version": "1.0",
"provider_name": "Action Network",
"provider_url": "https://actionnetwork.org",
"html": "",
"author_name": "TNG-CWA Local 31041",
"author_url": "https://actionnetwork.org/groups/tng-cwa-local-31041",
"title": "Send A Message To the Daily Hampshire Gazette's Ownership: How Dare You",
"thumbnail_url": "https://can2-prod.s3.amazonaws.com/letters/photos/000/121/111/normal/PVNG-Keep-Home_(1).jpg",
"description": "The Pioneer Valley NewsGuild is fighting a two-front battle. Even as we push to preserve print and distribution jobs at the Gazette, we have been engaging in effects bargaining with the company; if we can't save these jobs, at least those laid off will be fairly compensated. We weren't expecting to give reports from the table about this, as our focus is still to preserve these jobs and #KeepTheGazetteAtHome. However, the severance offer put forward by the company at our last bargaining session was so insulting that we feel compelled to make it public. The company offered $500 in severance to its part-time workers, regardless of service. That is a pitiful amount on its own, but when you realize that some part-time workers have given 14 years of service to this company, that's sickening. But their offer was hardly better for full-time workers. They offered one week of pay for every two years of service, with a maximum of $5,000 of severance. One of our full timers at the press has been working there for more than 40 years. To offer them $5,000 of severance after decades of work is wrong. How much would this plan cost them? By our hasty math, about $60,000. How much money would this save them, this year ALONE? A conservative guess is about $300,000. The Gazette has been discussing outsourcing these jobs since last year with Gannett, well before the COVID-19 pandemic. They also say this isn't being done because of financial exigency (a necessary move to keep the company from going under). They're calling this "a business decision." Well, offering longtime employees $500 of severance shows just what kind of business they want to engage in, as is continuing to use the services of anti-union law firm Seyfarth Shaw. What can you do? Sign the petition to #KeepTheGazetteAtHome and send a letter (using the form with editable template included here) to Gazette publisher Michael Moses, and CEO and President of Newspapers of New England Aaron Julien saying that offers like this are unacceptable to the people of the Pioneer Valley.",
"url": "https://actionnetwork.org/letters/how-dare-you"
}