Union leader to Dow Jones employees: We will get best deal

Bob Kozma, the president of the Independent Association of Publishers’ Employees, the union that represents business journalists at The Wall Street Journal, Dow Jones Newswires and Marketwatch.com, sent out the following note to its members:

First we had the Bancrofts as owners. Now we have the Murdochs. We have endured Peter Kann and Rick Zannino as CEOs, followed by Les Hinton. Lex came . . . and went. The chandelier is going, too.

Through all the changes, one thing is clear: We, the employees represented by the Independent Association of Publishers’ Employees, make Dow Jones & Co. happen.

From the Wall Street Journal to Barron’s, from Factiva to MarketWatch — we make it happen.

From New York to California, Dallas to Toronto, Chicago to Washington — we make it happen.

From newsrooms to press rooms; from sales to customer service; building maintenance, circulation, finance, payroll, technology — wherever you see “Dow Jones” painted on a wall or stenciled on a door — we make it happen.

Managers may come and go, executives may change strategies seemingly overnight, but we remain steadfast because we know — we make it happen.

The new year is only one month old and look how tumultuous it has been. We await the news on News Corp’s — and Dow Jones’s — performance in the latest quarter. Management may once again say how it has to wring cost savings from the organization, and how the company has to do more with less. The leadership of your union will do all we can to counter management’s desire to heap more work on its employees.

This year, IAPE and Dow Jones will negotiate a new collective-bargaining agreement, the contract that governs how we operate. With your support, we will do what we always do: get the best deal possible. We will do this because we know — we make it happen!