Unionized Chron workers turn to social media to protest new health care plan

Unionized employees at the Chronicle have turned to social media to protest Hearst's desire to switch to a new health insurance plan that they say will cost them up to $3,000 a year more. An open letter on Facebook from the workers says:

We, the employees of the San Francisco Chronicle, have had enough. 

We love this newspaper, and we've worked hard since the layoffs of 2009 to help keep it afloat. We've done everything Hearst demanded: sacrificing pay raises, giving up seniority, losing vacation time and holidays, even working through what used to be our paid lunch hour. 

For years, we've been working twice as hard with a smaller staff — doing everything needed to keep this paper afloat, relevant and great. And this is how the highly profitable Hearst Corporation pays us back. 

Now, Hearst is insisting that we shoulder huge increases for an inferior health plan. Even offset by a meager proposed raise, this accounts to a pay cut of hundreds or thousands of dollars a years for most of us.

As part of the protest, some employees are changing their Twitter avatar to a red box, MediaBistro's Fishbowl LA reports. The union points out that after months of negotiations, they still don't have a contract with the paper. Here's a link to the union's side of the story.