Chicago’s ugly brawl for 2018 may well be within the Tribune ranks itself

Chicago Tribune news people have been speaking out in recent weeks about how they want to organize themselves into a union and have bragged about how they have about 85 percent of their staff in support of the idea.

No longer the 'World's Greatest Newspaper,' and no longer just 2 cents. Will it remain without labor unions

But it really shouldn’t come as any surprise that the newspaper’s management on Wednesday responded with the equivalent of, “I don’t care!”

THE CHICAGO TRIBUNE Guild received a formal response saying that the 85 percent of people signing union cards indicating their support for becoming an official union isn’t enough to sway them.

“Not enough information” was what management said, adding they’re more than willing to follow the procedures established by the National Labor Relations Board – by which a formal election will need to be held at some point later this year.

If a majority of reporter-types remain in support of the idea of becoming a chapter of the NewsGuild – Communications Workers of America, then perhaps there will be an officially-recognized union. But not one bloody moment before!

No such election has yet been scheduled, although I would expect it could happen sometime in late summer – or perhaps during Autumn. Round about the time the Chicago Bears start stinking up Soldier Field again with their awful play, we could see this issue resolved.

IN THE WEEKS and months until then, we’re going to see a whole lot of hostile rhetoric. A whole lot of reporter-types, including some of the most honored and award-winning in the newsgathering business, are going to be told publicly by management how replaceable they all are.

How in this particular era of the news business they ought to feel thankful to be employed by anybody who allows them to report the news for a living, and how the last thing they ought to be doing is trying to undermine the business interests of their employer.

Now I’m sure some people are going to want to think I’m exaggerating the situation. Particularly if they’re the types of people who are inclined to believe there’s a touch of truth in the over-the-top statements I wrote in the past couple of paragraphs.

Tribune soon to leave their historic tower

But I have my memories of back when I got out of college and started out in the news business.

MY FIRST PAYING reporter gig (I was an unpaid intern at a few places previously) was at the now-defunct Star Newspapers of Chicago Heights. By and large, I have pleasant memories of the eight months I was there and of some of the people I met.

But when I got there in June of 1987, the newspaper was in the midst of trying to establish itself as a local of the Chicago Newspaper Guild. A process that managed to split the staff into factions until the ultimate culmination in late October that year of an election.

One that I remember being a poll watcher for the union interests, and one in which I still remember the union interests lost by four votes. Not as close as a couple of years later when the old Southtown Economist newspaper tried to unionize and wound up with an evenly-split vote – a result that went in favor of management and was a loss.

Personally, I always thought the best jobs I had were at union-organized newsrooms. Mostly because it established set rules for dealing with various situations – rather than letting them be determined by what could appear to be the whims of management.

News business has changed much throughout the years

BUT TRYING TO establish a union shop in a newsroom is not something I ever would want to repeat in my work life. Particularly the letters me and my colleagues would receive from the New York attorneys retained by the newspaper to intimidate us into thinking we were being recklessly irresponsible in even contemplating making demands of the newspaper.

All or this is likely to occur at the Tribune – particularly since the one-time World’s Greatest Newspaper has such a history of being intensely anti-organized labor. Col. McCormick of the paper’s past (and whose distant relations have recently purchased an interest in the newspaper’s ownership) would boast about how he’d pay his reporters well (by newspaper standards) so as to make them think union representation wasn’t necessary.

Those supporting the unionization effort (including some reporters I know personally) say that recent years have brought about changes in circumstance that make the old logic inapplicable. They’re going to feel the gut check when they learn management is willing to openly demean them in order to keep the status quo in place.

Because I certainly can’t see any newspaper supportive of Gov. Bruce Rauner’s own anti-union efforts for state government willing to allow the “beast” of organized labor to soil the new offices they’re planning on moving into this summer.

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The day will come when “The Tower” won’t be Tribune office any longer

It doesn’t shock me to learn that the top management of Tribune Co. is seriously thinking of selling off their iconic office building overlooking Michigan Avenue and the Chicago River – and not just because the media company’s top boss is a real estate developer who buys and sells buildings for a living.

The building that combines with the Wrigley Building to give the “Magnificent Mile” its southernmost entrance point faces the prospect of being sold. That’s what Tribune boss Sam Zell says.

HE’S THROWING OUT the hints that a sale of the building could generate enough cash to keep the actual media properties going awhile longer (at least long enough that he can dream about a future economic uptick that could bolster the company’s long-term financial situation).

Some people are going to cite sentiment and tradition as reasons why the Tribune can’t leave the riverfront – the Chicago Tribune newsroom and corporate offices have been there since the 1920s.

But I can recall as long as 20 years ago hearing Tribune employees themselves talk about the day when they expected to be working in another building. If anything, my reaction to hearing Zell talk about a sale is to be amazed that the company (in previous incarnations) held onto the building as long as it did.

Whenever I heard Tribune newspaper people talk about “the Tower,” they would note that the printing plant had long ago left Michigan Avenue. The paper is printed at an elaborate (and huge) complex on Chicago Avenue where it has easy access to the routes that trucks use to ship bundles of newspapers to vendors across the Chicago area.

I WOULD ALWAYS hear how it would be likely that someday, Tribune Co. would just build an annex to the printing plant to house the newsroom. In some ways, it would make sense. Most newspapers are published out of complexes that more closely resemble factories than downtown office buildings.

Insofar as the idea of a newsroom close to the downtown business district being important, one needs to keep in mind that the Tribune already keeps most of its city-based reporters scattered in the press rooms of various government buildings. Much of its metro staff actually works out of offices in far-flung places such as Oak Brook, Vernon Hills and Tinley Park.

To these people, it really doesn’t matter where the “home office” is located. The whole concept of a downtown-based home is an antique concept.

The gothic castle-like structure desired by Col. Robert R. McCormick (with its 24th floor corporate suite designed with secret passageways so that McCormick could escape undetected) is a luxury most media companies never indulged themselves, and the few that did got rid of long ago.

BESIDES, THERE’S ALWAYS the possibility that talk of a Tribune Annex at their printing plant will never happen. They could just as easily sell the building, then pay rent to their new landlord. There likely would even be some understanding that the rent paid by the newspaper would be minimal – the new owner would be expected to find other ways to make money off ownership of “the Tower.”

It also would mean building maintenance would become someone else’s problem, rather than that of the Tribune.

That is what many people never seemed to comprehend when Zell talked about another division of the company – the Chicago Cubs, which for awhile was anxious to sell off the structure where the team plays its games.

“How can you have the Cubs not own Wrigley Field?,” they would ask. Actually, the Cubs would love it if they could find someone else to pay to maintain the building, and to oversee the significant renovation that will be necessary for the structure to remain in use for several more decades (which is the desire of many Cubs fans, even moreso than a championship ball club).

IF THAT ENTITY could enhance its image, and profitability, by being associated with the Cubs, that would be their reward.

I expect Zell to try to sell off as much in the way of assets as possible. So I can’t get all worked up over the chatter going around Chicago this week that he would dare to sell off the structure.

In fact, I can’t help but believe that the day will come when someone not only buys the building, but deems it worthy of destruction so that something “modern” could be built on the site – which not only oversees the river but also has an excellent view from its upper floors of Lake Michigan.

Col. McCormick had a wonderful view of the Midwestern landscape from his office at the tower. No wonder he was willing to “rule” over his “empire” like a feudal lord – he had a structure like a castle and a personal office/throne room that was impressive. Why look up to someone as low as a U.S. president, when he probably had a more impressive office than Franklin D. Roosevelt did?

SOMEONE IN THE future is going to decide that the site can be put to better use – just like the old Sun-Times Building (the sight of which I actually miss) was sold off and demolished so that New York real estate developer Donald Trump could erect a hideous-looking Chicago-based monument to himself.

When that day comes (and I fully expect to still be alive when it happens), then the one significant issue of historic preservation related to Tribune Tower will occur – what will happen to all those rocks?

For those of you who don’t know what I’m referring to, I mean all those culturally significant boulders that (throughout the years) have been embedded into the outer walls of Tribune Tower.

Tribune correspondents in the early years managed to snag chunks of structures such as the Great Wall of China and the Coliseum in Rome so that they could become a part of McCormick’s monument to himself. Since then, bits of rubble from the now-destroyed World Trade Center have been added. There’s even a rock from the Moon on display inside the building.

I WOULD HOPE that someone would have enough sense to remove those chunks before the building itself ceased to exist.

Otherwise, we face the possibility by forgetting that a piece of the Alamo (which Texans love to remember, but Tejanos could care less about) could be ground into the Chicago pavement, its dust to forever become a part of the Near North Side.

Then again, with Chicago’s growing Latino population, that act could turn out to be intentional.

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EDITOR’S NOTES: Would Tribune Tower become like the Sears Tower, a Chicago structure (http://newsblogs.chicagotribune.com/steve_chapman/2008/06/tribune-tower-f.html) that kept its iconic name even after its parent company sold it off to outside (http://featuresblogs.chicagotribune.com/theskyline/2008/06/tribune-tower-u.html) interests?

Chicago officially recognizes the significance of Tribune Tower to the city’s physical character (http://www.cityofchicago.org/Landmarks/T/TribuneTower.html), which could have had (http://www.emporis.com/en/wm/bu/?id=tribunetower-chicago-il-usa) a significantly different design had a different contest winner been chosen in 1922.