By Matt Sepic, KWMU
St. Louis – By an overwhelming margin Sunday, the St. Louis Newspaper Guild voted down a contract offer from the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.
About 600 Post employees have been working under an expired contract for 13 months--unable to agree with management on wages, health care and other issues.
In December, guild members authorized union leaders to call a strike if necessary, because management wanted to make guild membership optional.
The Post conceded on that point, and spokesman Matt Davis says the disagreements should have ended there.
"Up to a month ago it has been open shop open shop," Davis said. "That has been resolved. So it seems like whenever we come to whatever the guild has asked us to do, there's a new issue, they've moved the bar where we need to go, and it's very frustrating through this negotiating process."
Guild President Tim O'Neil says the 14 percent raises in the four-year contract are offset too much by rising health care costs. He adds the contract still falls short on wages, health care and job security.
"What we have here today I believe is a clear mandate to settle this in a fair way," O'Neil said. "I hope that the company listens to the obvious sentiments of its employees."
O'Neil says the union will continue to negotiate, and did not indicate that a strike was imminent.