20 years later, fired journalists win $3.6M from Santa Barbara newspaper owner

Members of the community fill De La Guerra Plaza in front of the Santa Barbara News-Press newspaper's office during a rally on July 18, 2006. The Pulitzer Prize-winning Santa Barbara News-Press, one of California's oldest newspapers, ceased publishing after its owner declared the 150-year-old publication bankrupt. Wendy McCaw's mistreatment of workers and financial misdealings, however, will cost her after a recent NLRB ruling. | Michael A. Mariant / AP

SANTA BARBARA, Calif.—The National Labor Relations Board has ordered Wendy McCaw, the controversial owner and publisher of the now-defunct Santa Barbara News-Press, to pay $3.603 million in back pay, interest, and damages to workers she illegally fired or shorted in pay five years ago, including at least $111,040 to their union, then the Graphic Communications Conference / Teamsters, and now the Printing, Packaging, and Production Workers / Machinists.

Buried in the details of the board’s ruling, issued in the middle of June, is evidence that McCaw took money from the paper and funneled it to her other enterprises—and she was the sole owner of all of them. She also pocketed some for herself.

The Santa Barbara case, the ensuing controversy, and the unionization drive have wound through the courts and the NLRB for close to two decades. The workers, to defend themselves (or try to) against McCaw’s depredations and interference, overwhelmingly unionized with the Graphic Communications Conference in 2005.

The board said the union will get at least $111,040, plus daily compounded interest, for its costs in bringing the lawsuit against McCaw and the parent company of the News-Press, Ampersand Publishing. That’s the smallest sum in the case.

Larger sums are scheduled, again including interest, for the five pro-union workers McCaw illegally fired. One, Richard Mineards, is in line for $550,000 plus interest.

McCaw and Ampersand committed unfair labor practices—the formal name for labor law-breaking—in canning all five for their union advocacy.

Other News-Press workers will get merit pay they’re owed, plus interest. Union members who lost work to non-union workers whom McCaw and management used, are in line for $936,005, again plus interest. The total for all the other workers besides the fired five is $2.285 million, again plus interest.

Besides breaking labor law while trying to keep the Graphic Communications Conference out of the newsroom, McCaw became nationally controversial.

She spiked unfavorable stories about her favorite executives and forced workers—including a top columnist and the paper’s editor in chief—to quit or be fired for trying to practice honest journalism. The fired editor sued her, too, for defamation.

The spiked stories were picked up by other Bay Area publications. McCaw sued them for copyright infringement and lost. And readers picketed, cancelled subscriptions, and even hung protest banners from a freeway overpass.

McCaw diverted money to her other enterprises, taking it away from the Santa Barbara paper. Ampersand Aviation, LLC, got  $91,011. Georgetown Interstate Aviation, LLC, got $622,351.78. The “estate manager” for Stanford Farms Trust, LLC got $9,706.92. Ampersand Properties, Inc. got $214,914.20. Ampersand Holdings, Inc. got $344,186.12, with some of it labelled “payroll.” And Ampersand Capital, LLC got $110,000.

McCaw personally grabbed money from the paper, too. “From about March 2020 to August 2020, McCaw made a series of eleven $5,000 transfers of respondent Ampersand’s funds directly to herself, amounting to a total of $55,000,” the NLRB reported. “Respondent Ampersand” was the paper.

But if or when McCaw will pay up is an open question.

A footnote at the end of the board’s ruling says McCaw’s firm, Ampersand Publishing, and her real estate company—which owned the paper’s building—filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy on July 21, 2023. The footnote laconically adds NLRB judgements still stand against bankrupt firms. The Santa Barbara News-Press saga may not be over yet.

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CONTRIBUTOR

Press Associates

Press Associates Inc. (PAI), is a union news service in Washington D.C. Mark Gruenberg is the editor.