TNG History in Kenosha

The Kenosha Newspaper Guild is Local 34159 of the international. Employees in the editorial departments of the Kenosha News have been represented by the local for 48 years.

The roots for the Kenosha Local were established in 1937 at the Kenosha Labor Paper.

Early attempts to organize the Guild at the Kenosha News were unsuccessful until 1950. Up until that point, a regular pattern of individual and general wage increases, a feeling of job security and an unreal fear that management might punish members – an illegal practice – prevented the Guild from obtaining a majority.

A little more than a year later, a pair of firings removed all sense of job security from the editorial department and it also soon became evident that wage increases were tapering off with top employees still paid below the hourly rate in many local factories.

The organization of the Guild at the News in the summer of 1953 came from within. Except for obtaining membership cards from the officers of the Local 34159, no outside help was offered or sought and the international was unaware organizing was under way until after every member of the editorial department had signed up.

After that point, outside help was necessary and The Newspaper Guild (known then as the American Newspaper Guild) sent an international representative, Ray Mann, a display advertising salesman on long-term leave from the Indianapolis Star and full-time employee of TNG to Kenosha.

Following a secret ballot conducted by the National Labor Relations Board, which showed the department was 100 percent in favor of the Guild, a contract proposal was submitted to management and negotiations began in November of 1953. As is the case with initial contracts, negotiations continued for months until the first contract was signed in April of 1954.

Mann led the Guild’s bargaining team, supported by four of the top local leaders. The international spent more than $2,000 (think 1954 dollars) aiding the Kenosha News unit to secure its first contract, more than the TNG could expect to receive back in dues from the News unit in the subsequent decade.

When the Kenosha News was purchased by its current owner United Communications Corp. in 1961, the Guild moved swiftly to guarantee that all the benefits under the old contract would be continued.

Since then, the Guild has made vast strides at improving pay and working conditions at the News. As issues such has quality health care, vacation time and sick time entered the equation, the Guild has sought to get a reasonable safeguards and measures for each issue.

Over the years, company-Guild differences have been resolved peacefully. Each party has learned to respect one another. The Guild wants NO change in that relationship.