FILE - The offices of the Bulletin newspaper in Bend, Ore., on Dec. 5, 2024.
Emily Cureton Cook / OPB
Unionized staff at Central Oregon’s largest newspaper, the Bend Bulletin, have filed a federal labor complaint against Carpenter Media Group after little progress was made during bargaining over proposed layoffs.
Earlier this month, Carpenter Media Group laid off two newsroom staff at its papers, and proposed more job cuts at the Bulletin as a way to reduce its operating costs since buying dozens of papers in Oregon this year. The company has become the single largest newspaper owner in the state as decades of declining revenue for media outlets have led to numerous newspaper closures.
Morgan Owen, president of the Central Oregon NewsGuild, said talks in the bargaining session broke down quickly as Carpenter Media representatives began discussing reducing staff reimbursements for phones and other expenses in addition to the proposed layoffs. Owen said the guild’s lawyer asked how much the company would negotiate on the terms of the cuts, and Bulletin publisher John Carr said company policy over reimbursements largely are not negotiable.
“The company didn’t bring anybody to the table who was able to make concessions or make a deal with us. And, therefore, they were not bargaining in good faith,” Owen said.
The group’s labor complaint, filed Thursday with the National Labor Relations Board, further claims Carr and other Carpenter Media Group officials asked for the negotiation to continue while “refusing to even identify the people not at the table, with whom the people at the table were allegedly in contact, who allegedly might have the authority to modify such proposals.”
Reached Thursday evening, Carr declined to answer questions or provide a statement about the federal labor complaint.
The Central Oregon NewsGuild formed a little over a year ago, but has not reached a first contract with its employer, in part because East Oregonian Media Group — which had owned the Bulletin and other newspapers east of the Cascade Mountains — sold its media outlets to Carpenter in October.
Carpenter has faced criticism for scooping up Pacific Northwest newspapers and repeatedly engaging in layoffs that are hitting local news providers who already have threadbare staff.
Owen said the proposed layoffs at the Bulletin target senior reporter Suzanne Roig, news assistant Ian Haupt and two of the staff’s three photographers. Carpenter’s proposal, according to Owen, asked if any of the photographers would take voluntary layoffs. Additional photography work would likely land on reporters if the layoffs went through, she said.
“They heavily implied that they’re not willing to make many concessions, that they’re probably going to hold their line that these layoffs are necessary,” she added.
The Bulletin and other EO Media Group staff faced a round of layoffs in June that cut around 15% of jobs prior to the Carpenter acquisition.
Owen said reporters on staff generally are making between $35,000 and $40,000 a year, a low wage in one of Oregon’s most expensive cities. A Bend city report released in July found that a person living there needed to make $72,000 a year to afford a one-bedroom apartment.
The contract negotiations have drawn attention from people with political power, including Oregon state Sen.-elect Anthony Broadman, D-Bend, and U.S. Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Oregon. Both men sent letters to Carpenter Media Group leaders offering support to the Bulletin’s staff after the union set up a letter drive, asking community members to back the struggling newspaper.
“As the son of a journalist, I have always appreciated The (Bend) Bulletin’s deep community connections and commitment to reporting that both informs readers and holds decision-makers accountable,” Wyden wrote. “I strongly support the Central Oregon News Guild to secure those working conditions and prevent additional layoffs at the newspaper. And I just as strongly urge Carpenter Media Group to bargain in good faith with the journalists at The Bulletin.”
The two sides are set to bargain again on Dec. 23, according to Owen.
