Here's two more internal Daily Cal letters. The first is former Editor Millie Lapidario's response to Mr. Hernandez.

Daniel,
Despite your earlier e-mail that stated you didn't expect me to reply, I called you last night to clear up some major misconceptions. You, however, did not respond.

It's interesting that you've judged me without bothering to hear my side of the story. Through your conversations with the Daily Cal's current management, you may have the impression that the only issue here is the new deadline policy. But if you read the letter we sent to our writers and the letter Leta wrote to SEB, you would have realized that the issue here is the lack of contracts at the Daily Cal.

Virginia basically advised Ron to fire Leta because of a dispute over the new deadline policy. With the way Ron and Virginia have been managing the paper, anyone can easily be fired for any reason. How can a newspaper be legitimate when free speech is being stifled within the newsroom?

Perhaps your skills as a journalist in finding the truth have not yet developed. You have not been to the Daily Cal newsroom this semester and therefore, have no understanding of our experience working with Virginia as the managing editor. She is incredibly rude, overzealous, and has proven her destructive nature by pushing to appoint her close friend, Mike Meyers, to the City Editor position. Meyers has never held as assistant editor position, has written columns illustrating his bias against the progressives in the City Council, and is not a registered UCB student.

I have already attempted to resolve the problem internally, repeatedly talking to Ron throughout the semester about my dissatisfaction with management's tyrannical method of running the newsroom. Each time, he has dismissed all of my concerns and refers to Virginia to make most of his decisions.

In our fight to obtain contracts for Daily Cal employees, we ARE following the credo "whatever is good for the paper." If we didn't care about the paper, we would have simply quit and never looked back. But the fact is, the two people who head The Daily Cal have abused their power almost beyond repair. Contracts would ensure that this could never happen again to another dedicated and valuable Daily Cal employee. By not having many of our writers this week, Ron and Virginia will hopefully recognize the value of every employee's contribution to the paper.

Below, you'll find a letter we wrote to SEB explaining our position. If you would like to discuss the matter further, I'd be happy to talk with you over the phone. However, attempting to intimidate me by stating that I have ruined my chances of working for the LA Times or any other newspaper is unnecessary and quite presumptuous for someone who has only been working at a major publication for a few months.

--Millie

The second is the letter sent by the Rebels to the Daily Cal's Senior Editorial Board.

Dear members of the Senior Editorial Board,

We are writing to you to clarify what we are standing for and what we hope to achieve. This is not about deadlines.
Our end goal is to ensure that all writers, editors, and staff members obtain contracts. Leta was fired on Monday without ANY formal discussion or feedback from SEB. Mike Meyers was appointed City Editor without ANY formal discussion or feedback from SEB. Only three SEB members selected Leta's replacement, one of whom is friends with Mike. This is a clear conflict of interest. Millie, who would have been working very closely with Mike, was never part of the discussion. Once Mike took the position, he chose not to pick one of the then assistant news editors--which rendered one of them automatically dismissed without just cause. Neither of the assistants were ever notified ahead of time that this was a possibility.
Contracts would make sure that there is a clearly delineated process for all personnel issues, including firing and promotions to editorial positions. THIS IS NOT ABOUT DEADLINES, which the AP article erroneously stated. The process for evaluating staff should also be clearly written in order to avoid what happened to Leta, as explained in her letter to SEB Monday. If evaluations are to be used as evidence for a firing, they must be comprehensive and represent the staff that initially hired the staff member in question. It is highly unusual for an evaluation not to include the people who work closest to the staff member in question.
In the end, why would anybody oppose the implementation of contracts? This has nothing to do with money or deadlines or even regaining our positions.
This semester, we wrote an editorial supporting contracts for UC lecturers and clerical workers. Now, we are asking you to extend the same reasoning to your own workplace.
"Prioritizing talks with labor unions may cost the university more money, but it will also help stop the degradation of UC Berkeley's educational infrastructure," the editorial states. Well, prioritizing contracts may have cost our positions, but it will also help stop the degradation of The Daily Californian.

Sincerely,
Millie Lapidario
Leta Shy
Jennifer Kline
Ben Barron

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