Guild Revisits Past Leader
to Help Plan Bright Future

By Robert J. McCarthy
Former BNG President

I was very pleased to have Sina Williams visit me at the Old Presidents Home the other day to coax me out of Guild retirement for a while. It will be a tough task -- but one I'm eager to take on.

There is no question that the mission of "union building" that Sina and Tom Dolan have outlined for the coming year ranks as our highest priority -- maybe our highest ever.

I really believe that our local stands at a crossroads. We can either sit back and accept 2 percent pay hikes and a lot of other grief for the rest of our careers, or we can begin studying ourselves to decide how to react to the greed mentality now driving The News.

My hope is that this new committee will examine everything: how we do business, how we're organized, how we conduct negotiations, how we deal with management problems. We should be open to suggestions from everyone, and we have to find ways to make the Guild relevant to every single member.

Most importantly, we must work harder than ever before to create a united front. Instead of letting individual concerns dominate our negotiating process, we have to find common ground. We must act like a union in the truest sense of the word.

What's it going to take?

Frankly, I'm not sure. But we'll be willing to listen to everybody's suggestions. And I hope to recommend that the local spend some of its money for one of its most important tasks in years -- a sort of "refounding" process that will hopefully reinvigorate us. One scenario has been to find a consultant who will study our processes and help us to determine the best way to bring us together and face the 21st century. I like that idea already.

We’ll be asking for your help in the weeks ahead. If you haven't been involved before, this could be a way to start. If you have been active, we can use your expertise.

In the meantime, think about the suggestions you would like to make. I promise we'll listen to every one.