Elk schools Kristof

Mike Elk, labor journalist extraordinary, for real, wrote an excellent piece for In These Times on Kristof’s op-ed raking CTU over the coals. Naturally, elk knew all kinds of things I wasn’t aware of including Kristof’s lack of an opinion on the New York Time’s freezing the pensions of non-U.S. citizen overseas employee pensions, but we’ll get there.

Kristof enjoyed similar protections when he started with the Times in 1980 as a member of the Newspaper Guild of New York. He ceased being a member of the union when he became a columnist. Union members have asserted that once Kristof’s star started to rise he gave them the cold shoulder when they asked him to help in restoring the pensions for the overseas non-U.S. citizen employees.

January 2012, the New York Times froze the pensions of all non-U.S. citizen overseas employees, many of these individuals work in dangerous locations as translators and fixers. This upset many of the reports because recently two foreign employees died in the line of duty (for lack of a better phrase). Reporter Sultan Manadi (a former Time translator) died training to protect a reporter in Afghanistan and Times translator Khalid W. Hassan near Baghdad in 2007.

More than 600 New York Times employees condemned the pension freeze in an open letter to New York Times publisher Arthur Sulzberger, Jr. last December reading:

“Our foreign citizen employees in overseas bureaus have just had their pensions frozen with only a week’s warning. Some of these people have risked their lives so that we can do our jobs. A couple have even lost them. Many have spent their entire careers at the Times—indeed, some have letters from your father explaining the pension system—and deserve better treatment.”

 Elk spoke to a union member who had tried to get Kristof to sign the letter, given Kristof has won two Pulitzers for his overseas reporting. Kristof did not respond to him. In fact none of the columnist responded to this member who assisted in writing the letter though all of them were asked except Krugman. Shockingly, Kristof didn’t respond to Elk’s inquires about his story either.

The New York Times is involved in a contract dispute with the Newspaper Guild of New York. The reports at the Times have worked without a contract for nearly a year and a half when their contract expired on March 31, 2011. Elk is an associate member of the Newspaper Guild (TNG-CWA).

Union leaders, including Bill O’Meara, are hoping star reporters and columnist speak up. O’Meara fears the New York Times will seek an impasse in bargaining with the National Labor Relations Board to impose a concessionary contract on unionized reporters.

Bill O’Meara, Newspaper Guild of New York President, claims the New York Times is trying to eliminate pensions for U.S. employees as well. A sticking point in negotiations includes the Times wants to increase employee healthcare costs, which are already high.

Elk asserts it is not uncommon for star reporters and columnists to stay out of the union struggles because they feel their jobs are protected by the power of their brands. Kristof doesn’t have to worry the Times views him as an asset, but other reporters are not so lucky. O’Meara thinks the struggle will come to a head next month. He also says no one is ruling out a strike.

Personally, I would love to hear Kristof explain how foreign Times employees don’t deserve their pensions, and how unions are destroying newspapers in the U.S. Or maybe just come out and say he is anti-labor. And that no, he wouldn’t be sympathy to the CTU needs any more than the needs of those in his own house.