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 BARBWIRE
by ANDREW BARBANO Updated 12-20-2006 and 1-30-2015
 I do the following with heavy heart. I must rightly criticize and
demean the professional reputations of people I have long known and
respected. I will do them the personal courtesy of anonymity.Last week, a magnificent seven traveled here to seven-come-eleven
land. You should know their names: Barbara Ingalls, Randy Karpinen, Dennis
Nazelli, Dia Pearce, John Peralta, Mike Zielinski and Ann Marie Znamer.They represent their fellow victims of two greedy newspaper chains:
Gannett, owners of the Reno Gazette-Journal and USA Today, and
Knight-Ridder, which publishes the Miami Herald. Our recent visitors wander
the land telling tales of corporate welfare at the Detroit News and Detroit
Free Press. (Read "The Chain Gang" by Richard McCord at your local
library.)Motown newspaper workers stand locked out of the two publications
where most jobs are now held by illegal strikebreakers. Some of those
replacements are my former Tribune colleagues.The Detroit Seven tell ugly stories of the corporate campaign to
ruin their careers. Strikebreakers wave dollar bills or paychecks as they
travel through picket lines. Some wear t-shirts emblazoned with
"International Brotherhood of Replacement Workers" or "I'm not a scab, I'm
a scar, and scars are permanent."In 1974, when Teamster John Peralta first went to work collating
printed inserts, he made $7.00 an hour. The chain gang recently offered him
the opportunity to return to his old job for two days a week at $8.00 per
hour, half his pre-strike pay rate.The Detroit strike was long-planned. It began with governmental
corruption. Ed Meese, Ronald Reagan's attorney general, overruled an
administrative law judge and his own anti-trust division and authorized a
Motown newspaper monopoly.In the robber-baron 1980s, Gannett and Knight-Ridder had become
notorious for going easy on Meese when the embattled Reagan crony stood up
to his scalp in corruption. Meese left office the day after giving the
chain gang everything it wanted.The Detroiters who came here last week have logged tens of
thousands of miles speaking out against the monopolists, but they traveled
to northern Nevada on a different mission. Depending on their trades,
Motown workers are members of either the Teamsters or the Newspaper Guild
(part of my union, the Communications Workers of America). The Teamsters
have a longrunning battle with Overnight truck lines, a particularly brutal
employer owned by Union Pacific Railroad.Union Pacific is the pusher of a porous plan to pump hazardous
(nuclear and otherwise) cargoes through our downtown areas. Their recent
merger with Southern Pacific means a doubling of rail traffic through the
hearts of Reno and Sparks. The railroad's safety record rivals that of the
Exxon Valdez.The corporate solution to this problem has been a full-blown PR
campaign orchestrated by, among others, former Reno Evening Gazette city
editor John Bromley, now a U.P. flak based in Omaha, Neb.Last Wednesday evening, the Detroit Seven showed up at a
U.P.-sponsored propagandafest at the Northern Nevada Railroad Museum in
Carson City. (Another is scheduled at John Ascuaga's Nugget this Thursday
at 7:00 p.m. To attend, call 1-800-9RENO-UP.)For trying to bring out the truth, our visitors were vilified. One
woman, a developer, said any worker aspiring to make over $40,000 a year is
guilty of rape and pillage against employers.The capital city cold shoulder was not the crusaders' first shabby
welcome. The Detroiters had earlier made an appointment with an editorial
page editor at the Reno Gazette-Journal. They told him upfront that they
wanted to talk railroad, not Motown. When they arrived, another editor was
sent out to inform them of the editorial writer's sudden non-availability.
Where the Detroiters were concerned, everyone was apparently on strike,
right down to the paper boy.Underscoring the snub, (follow the bouncing ball) the editor
meeting with them to tell them no one could meet with them concluded by
announcing her own unavailability to meet with them. Franz Kafka, call your
office.The paper's attitude changed overnight from openness to
stonewalling. Why? Try this: two members of Union Pacific's board of
directors also sit on Gannett's board. One of them, former Reagan
transportation secretary Drew Lewis, orchestrated the destruction of the
air traffic controllers union in 1981.One nuclear trainwreck in Reno could destroy the most profitable paper
in the entire Gannett chain. I know of no one in Nevada on Union Pacific's
side. To anyone else, the enemy of my enemy becomes my friend. At the
Gannett-Journal, that aphorism apparently doesn't apply to anyone desiring
decent pay. Diogenes from Detroit was thus dissed on the corporate
doorstep.I have not named those who swallowed their ethics. Everybody serves
somebody. Sometimes, you serve up your colleagues.Be well. Raise hell.
Andrew
Barbano is a Reno-based syndicated columnist and 29-year Nevadan,
is editor of U-News.Barbwire by Barbano
has appeared in the Sparks Tribune
since 1988 and parts of this column were originally published 9/14/97.Nevada Instant Type in Sparks and both Office Depot Reno locations. |
See also Dawn of the Dead, the BARBWIRE of July 22, 2001
|
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Copyright © 1982-2015
Andrew Barbano
Andrew Barbano is a 46-year Nevadan, editor of NevadaLabor.com and JoeNeal.org; and former chair of the City of Reno's Citizens Cable Compliance Committee. He is producer of Nevada's annual César Chávez Day celebration and serves as first vice-president, political action chair and webmaster of the Reno-Sparks NAACP. As always, his opinions are strictly his own. E-mail barbano@frontpage.reno.nv.us.
Barbwire by Barbano moved to Nevada's Daily Sparks Tribune on Aug. 12, 1988, and has originated in them parts ever since.
Whom to blame: How a hall-of-famer's hunch birthed the Barbwire in August of 1987
Tempus fugit.
Copyright © 1997,
2001, 2005, 2006, 2015 Andrew Barbano
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