Tag Results for Dan Totten

Former Boston Newspaper Guild president Dan Totten (photo) signed another union official’s name on his paycheck in order to circumvent a dispute involving unauthorized expenses Totten had rung up on his union credit card, according to an audit conducted by the U.S. Department of Labor.

The results of the audit were laid out in a Nov. 17 letter from the Employment Standards Administration of the Office of Labor-Management Standards (OLMS) in the Department of Labor’s Boston office. The letter was sent to Patrice Sneyd, Guild treasurer. The Guild is the largest union at the Boston Globe, and was involved in a months-long dispute last year with the Globe’s corporate owner, the New York Times Co., over a management demand for $10 million in union givebacks.

The Guild removed Totten on Dec. 2 after allegations of improprieties arose. (See previous posts.) Totten has appealed his removal and maintained he did nothing wrong. The Department of Labor letter is a public document, but it was missing from the agency’s Web site until recently. (Read the entire letter.)

Although the letter lays out numerous deficiencies in Totten’s administration of union business, one of the more intriguing unanswered questions has involved allegations that Totten signed someone else’s name on his paycheck — an issue in the Guild’s decision to remove him. The letter offers an explanation.

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Boston Globe reporter Sean Murphy, who was the prosecutor in the Boston Newspaper Guild’s ouster of president — now former president — Dan Totten spoke with me a little while ago. Murphy is highly critical of remarks Totten made in an e-mail reported yesterday by the Boston Herald’s Jessica Heslam. Says Murphy:

All I want to say is that this was a prosecution, not a persecution. Mr. Totten was not the victim of a political vendetta. He was a victim of his own bad conduct. I was asked to be the prosecutor and agreed to do so. It was done by the book. There was no personal animosity. Any suggestion otherwise is false. Any suggestion that I was biased is false. I was well known to be a “no” vote on both contract proposals, which was in line with the position of Mr. Totten. I did not participate in any recall efforts. I was known to eschew recall.

Murphy adds that, though he did attend a meeting to discuss Totten’s possible removal, Totten “knows full well I expressed great skepticism.”

I asked Murphy whether there has been any talk about whether the accusations made against Totten by the union could result in the involvement of law enforcement. Murphy’s response: “I have not broached that subject nor has anybody in my presence.”

Both the Boston Globe and the Boston Herald today report on the ouster of Boston Newspaper Guild president Dan Totten, whose leadership during the union’s months-long standoff with the Globe’s owner, the New York Times Co., was widely criticized.

Each story raises more questions than it answers, starting with the use of the word “guilty” to describe the internal ruling against Totten on Wednesday. That’s a pretty loaded term, but neither account gives any indication whether it’s one that the union specifically uses, or if it’s just a less-than-legally-precise description of what happened.

As for the charges against Totten, let’s take a look at the specifics:

• He was found to have signed the name of another union official to his own paycheck.
• He was found to have improperly used his union credit card to buy $254 worth of personal items.
• He was found not to have produced receipts in a timely manner.

Are any of these accusations the sort of thing that law enforcement would find interesting? Perhaps the second item, although — not to downplay the seriousness of the allegation — it probably wouldn’t be worth the time given how little money was at stake. But it would seem to me that if Totten is not under any sort of criminal investigation, then we should tread carefully before labeling him a union crook.

As for the two other items, you could argue whether Totten should be punished for signing someone else’s name so that he could cash his own paycheck, but it was, after all, his own paycheck. Not producing receipts in a timely manner? You’ve got to be kidding.

I want to make it clear that I’m not sitting in judgment of anyone. Perhaps Totten really was, uh, guilty of serious malfeasance. My only point is that we don’t know.

I’d really like to see someone dig into this and find out whether we are truly talking about malfeasance, or if instead Totten was sacrificed because his members are unhappy with the way he dealt with the Times Co.

The Guild-Times Co. standoff was the biggest local media story of the year. Totten’s fall is an important element of that.

The Boston Globe is offering an electronic version of the paper that’s different than its web site. Panelist Dan Kennedy likes it so much he cancelled his daily subscription to the Globe. What will GlobeReader mean for the future of the print edition? Plus the latest on the sale of the newspaper.

As you may know, there's a movement afoot inside the Boston Newspaper Guild, the Globe's largest union, to hold a recall election. The impetus? Dissatisfaction with the way the Guild's leaders--including Guild head Dan Totten--handled the recent concede-or-close threat from the New York Times Company.

According to the Guild's bylaws, the recall-election process is actually pretty straightforward:

A recall election may be initiated in two ways: (a) The Governing Board, by a two-thirds vote of its entire membership, may initiate a recall election process in the case of some or all union officers or delegates; or (b) the membership may initiate a recall election process with 20 percent of the membership signing a petition to the Governing Board for that purpose.

1. The Governing Board must so inform the membership of this decision and reasons for this decision within 10 days.

2. The Governing Board must call a general membership meeting for the purpose of discussing this decision.

3. The general membership will then have the power to call a special election under the election procedures in Article III.

Earlier today, though, I was forwarded an email--originally sent by Totten--which argues, basically, that it's not that simple. In the message, Totten says that the Guild's bylaws are actually trumped by the bylaws of the Communications Workers of America, the Guild's parent union. And the CWA's recall protocol is way, way, way more complicated than the Guild's.

Totten's email follows. It's eye-glazing stuff, but the major point seems to be this: according to the CWA, recalls involve specific allegations of misconduct--and union leaders can determine that these allegations are unsound, thereby fending off a recall unless proponents can mount a successful appeal. In short, if the Guild's rules are trumped by the CWA's, it becomes a whole lot harder to unseat Totten and his fellow Guild heavyweights.

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The Boston Globe has a brief statement from Boston Newspaper Guild president Dan Totten on the Guild's approval of $10 million in concessions:

It has been a long and difficult period for everyone, and we hope that we can now work with prospective buyers to help The Boston Globe and boston.com to carry on with its vital mission to promote good journalism and protect free speech.

In addition, a newsroom source has passed along an e-mail editor Marty Baron sent to his troops a little while ago:

To the staff:

I know how stressful the past several months have been for all of you. Still, despite the pressures and the tension, you have never wavered in your commitment to deliver journalism of the highest caliber.

I want to say thank you.

Thank you for the depth of your dedication. Thank you for your consummate professionalism, even in times of discord and difficulty. And thank you for demonstrating every day that the work of this organization holds powerful and enduring value in our community.

Marty

At the Boston Herald, Jessica Heslam and Christine McConville offer some background and speculation.

Both from the same person!

On the one hand, there is an air of unreality to the stance taken by Boston Newspaper Guild president Dan Totten and those urging a "no" vote next Monday, the most public of whom has been Boston Globe political reporter Brian Mooney. It's as though they never visit Romenekso and don't understand that the newspaper business as we know it has come to an end.

[Mooney has responded to this item.]

Talk to knowledgeable observers and you won't find anyone who thinks the New York Times Co. is lying about the Globe's being on track to lose $85 million this year. I think there's a way forward for papers like the Globe — but only as leaner, smaller enterprises. You don't get there by continuing those archaic lifetime job guarantees for 190 Guild members.

On the other hand, Times Co. management has behaved in a contemptible and erratic fashion. As Totten pointed out in his letter to Guild members (pdf) yesterday, companies such as GateHouse Media and the Phoenix media outlets have cut disproportionately at the top. The Times Co., by contrast, is targeting the rank and file.

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