Dow Jones union stronger than in the 1980s, but will still lose

Forbes.com columnist Gary Weiss writes on the Seeking Alpha web site that the union representing business journalists at Dow Jones & Co. properties The Wall Street Journal, Barron’s, Marketwatch and Dow Jones Newswires is much stronger than it was in the 1980s, but will still lose out to News Corp. CEO Rupert Murdoch.

Weiss wrote, “It was expected that IAPE would galvanize employee opposition to the takeover, but IAPE’s emergence as a player is new and impressive. It is also a far cry from the IAPE of old — the IAPE I knew when I worked at Barron’s in the 1980s.

“Back then, this was a weak, divided, rather impotent force in dealing with the company. There was very little participation, apart from malcontents and hotheads like myself. While the idea of an employee union is theoretically a good one, it hasn’t worked out too well in the newspaper biz, partly because journalists are more interested in cutting individual deals with their employers than standing together in Leninist solidarity.

“I say ‘Leninist’ deliberately. Our union leader back in the early 1980s was a lovable but rigid British-born Marxist. His heart was in the right place but the membership was not behind him.

“Today, no doubt to the dismay of management, IAPE seems far stronger and also is affiliated with the AFL-CIO, which it wasn’t in the old days.

“I doubt that anything will come of the Burkle thing, and I have no doubt that Rupert is going to systematically crush this union when (not if, when) he takes over the company.“

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