Vocal union supporter Hobbs testifies

BY ERIC LINDBERG
DAILY SOUND STAFF WRITER

Vocal union supporter and former News-Press reporter Dawn Hobbs testified in yesterday’s federal hearing on unfair labor practice charges facing the Santa Barbara News-Press, discussing the events leading up to her termination in February.
Federal and Teamsters attorneys allege that News-Press management fired Hobbs due to her outspoken support of the unionization effort in the News-Press newsroom. Defense attorneys contend that management fired Hobbs over disloyalty to the company.

Hobbs’ testimony did not open yesterday’s proceedings, however. Former life section editor Andrea Huebner took the stand for about an hour as federal attorney Brian Gee focused largely on the cancellation of Starshine Roshell’s column.
Federal charges allege the News-Press canceled Roshell’s column due to her support of the unionization effort. Huebner said associate editor Scott Steepleton told her in August 2006 that all columns written by staff members had been canceled in order to remove the appearance of bias from the newspaper, a position being argued by the defense.
Huebner said she asked Steepleton if the cancellation applied to sports columns and he told her that he wasn’t sure when the new policy would apply to the sports department.
The next day, Huebner said she warned Steepleton that Roshell’s column would be the only staff column canceled and that might appear to be in retaliation for Roshell’s union support. Huebner then testified that Steepleton told her “that was going to be for someone else to deal with.”
Under cross examination by Dugan Kelley, Huebner said that another staff writer and Steepleton both had their columns canceled during the month prior to Roshell’s cancellation. She also said columns written by freelance writers had been canceled.
Gee also focused his questioning on the resignation of editor-in-chief Jerry Roberts on July 6, 2006, when editorial page editor Travis Armstrong escorted Roberts from the newsroom. Huebner testified that she heard Roshell and metro editor Jane Hulse direct invectives at Armstrong, but not reporter Dawn Hobbs. She also said Steepleton, who had been on vacation at the time of the resignation, did not contact her to find out what happened.
Steepleton testified earlier that part of his decision to fire Hobbs stemmed from his understanding that she said “Fuck you, Travis” as Armstrong led Roberts from the newsroom. Kelley questioned Huebner as to whether federal or union attorneys influenced her testimony on that issue.
“Nobody told me what was important or not important in my testimony,” Huebner responded, adding later, “Nobody told me what to say to the judge.”
With that, Huebner’s testimony concluded and Hobbs took her place on the witness stand.
Federal attorney Steve Wyllie first directed Hobbs to list various commendations she had received since she started working at the News-Press in May 1998. Hobbs said she received about eight state and national awards, including a 2006 award from the California Newspaper Publishers Association and a Pulitzer Prize nomination in 2003.
Wyllie then directed Hobbs to the resignations in July 2006 and her recollection of the events that occurred as Armstrong led Roberts out of the newsroom.
“I was very upset about it and sobbing,” Hobbs said.
She testified that both Roshell and Hulse directed obscenities at Armstrong after he took Roberts by the arm. She said she hugged Roberts and then Armstrong took him away, denying that she used any invectives.
Hobbs also answered questions on her performance evaluation for 2006 yesterday. She testified that when she met with Steepleton to discuss the evaluation, he told her she did a good job that year other than the “cussing incident with Travis Armstrong.”
Hobbs said she told Steepleton that was “absolutely incorrect,” that she had been sobbing and “couldn’t get a word out.” He responded by telling her that was not his understanding of the event, Hobbs said.
She also pointed out other areas of the evaluation she took issue with, including a reference to her being “too cozy with the cops” and that she had an issue with sloppy writing. Hobbs said she told Steepleton she was known for being “hard-hitting” on law enforcement and if he looked through the archives he would find hundreds of articles criticizing police.
Hobbs also said Steepleton never brought up issues with her writing before, explaining how he would often pass her desk and give her a thumbs-up after he read most of her stories, calling them “excellent stuff.”
She said she did not sign her evaluation and later turned in her rebuttal response to both Steepleton and Apodaca. In a later conversation with Apodaca, she said she asked the human resources director if she had received and looked over her response. Hobbs said Apodaca told her that she had received it but had not reviewed it yet.
Hobbs said she asked Apodaca at a later date if she had read the response, to which Apodaca responded that she hadn’t. Hobbs said she told Apodaca that serious allegations in the evaluation needed to be removed and she wanted to discuss the issue with her and Steepleton.
Apodaca told her she would set up a meeting, but that meeting never occurred, Hobbs said. Steepleton testified during the first week of the hearing that part of his basis for firing Hobbs related to her poor performance evaluation scores in 2006.
Wyllie then focused Hobbs on the union campaign to get readers to cancel their News-Press subscriptions. Hobbs said she distributed cancellation cards during community events on about 20 occasions during the six weeks leading up to September 2006.
“It was a core part of our campaign from the start,” Hobbs said.
Federal attorneys have argued that the widespread cancellation campaign affected the public perception of a protest on the Anapamu footbridge in which six reporters, including Hobbs, displayed banners reading “Cancel Your Newspaper Now.”
Defense attorneys maintain that they fired those reporters for disloyalty, arguing that since the signs involved in that protest did not contain union language, the public would not know it was union-related and therefore it was not protected activity.
Cappello reiterated that argument yesterday, objecting to any line of questioning about earlier cancellation campaigns as being irrelevant. Judge William Kocol ruled earlier that context is “completely relevant” and made the same ruling yesterday, allowing Wyllie to question Hobbs about the earlier cancellation campaign as well as the footbridge incident.
Although much of Hobbs’ discussion of the footbridge protest echoed earlier testimony by former News-Press reporters, she mentioned two signs reading “Bring Back Anna” and “Bring Back Melinda” that had not been previously discussed.
She also described her meeting with Steepleton, Kelley and a female attorney in which Kelley questioned her about the protest. After affirming that she had been on the bridge, she asked to speak with her lawyer, Hobbs said, to which Kelley responded, “You don’t have a lawyer in this matter.”
Hobbs said she told Kelley that the newsroom was involved in a labor dispute and the incident on the bridge was a federally protected, union-related activity. She said Kelley told her it was not protected and amounted to disloyalty, which the owner would not tolerate. Hobbs said Steepleton then handed her an envelope with her termination letter and final paycheck.
Defense attorney Barry Cappello did not get a chance to conduct his cross examination of Hobbs. That testimony will start at 9 a.m. on Monday at the Bankruptcy Court building on State Street.