TIME Inc. is battling the News paper Guild over union claims that the company is exploiting writers in People’s crucially important Los Angeles office.
The Guild claims that People Managing Editor Larry Hackett is forcing writers to work on People.com without adequate compensation, in violation of the collective bargaining agreement.
Both sides were arguing their case before the American Arbitration Association in New York earlier this week.
Lawyers have two weeks to file dueling briefs.
“We have an agreement that nobody is required to work at the dot-com unless their magazine schedule is adjusted for it,” said Bobby Townsend, the Guild’s Time Inc. representative.
“Don’t get me wrong, we don’t object to working on the dot-com,” he said. “But they are being overworked. They’re working outrageous hours and not being compensated.”
He said the beef involves about 20 writers and correspondents.
A spokeswoman said People declined to comment. “As a policy, we do not comment on staff issues or contract specifics,” she said.
Time Inc. has been more successful than most of its print rivals in extracting revenue from Web operations, with an estimated 10 percent of its total revenues coming from digital operations.
People.com and Sports Illustrated’s Web operations are considered the gems of the company’s digital side.
The fight comes only a week before the compa ny’s deadline for edito rial staffers to volunteer for severance packages from its biggest maga zines, including For tune, Sports Illustrated, People, Money and Time.
If it doesn’t hit its tar get number of volun teers, the company is expected to launch layoffs.
Book deal
Euna Lee, one of the two Current TV correspondents imprisoned by the North Korean government for 140 days earlier this year, has apparently beaten colleague Laura Ling into the book realm.
Both were sentenced to 12 years of hard labor in June for their accidental March foray onto North Korean territory, but were pardoned in August after former President Bill Clinton made a secret diplomatic trip to Pyongyang to plead for their re lease.
Yesterday, the Broadway Books imprint of Random House signed Lee to a six-figure deal to write her memoir of the imprisonment, tentatively entitled, “The World Is Big ger Now: A Memoir of Faith, Family and Freedom.”
Jennifer Gates and Todd Shuster of the Zachary Shuster Harmsworth Literary Agency brokered the deal.
William Morris Endeavor Entertainment is said to be shopping a book by Ling and her sister, Lisa Ling. Suzanne Gluck at William Morris is reportedly handling that one.
Both Lee and Ling were named 2009 Women of the Year by Glamour earlier this week.
Shake-up
There is a shake-up in the upper reaches of the masthead at Mort Zuckerman‘s Daily News.
The paper’s executive editor, David Ng, and the deputy city editor, Marilyn Matlick, are exiting.
Sources said it was a mutual decision for Matlick, who finished up last Friday.
“She left voluntarily and on good terms,” said a News spokesman.
The buzz on Ng, a veteran editor who had been at The Post and the Star Ledger in Newark, was that his contract was not being renewed. His last day is today.
Ng had most recently been working as a liaison between the Daily News newsroom and the printing plant in Liberty, NJ, where Zuckerman is installing new four-color presses that had a price tag of $250 million.
Ng did not return a call seeking comment. A News spokesman said, “David Ng has chosen to leave the Daily News to pursue new challenges and we wish him well.”
No replacements had been named at press time.
Dowd crowd
Maureen Dowd might be in the cross hairs of Archbishop Timothy Dolan for what he claims was anti-Catholic bias in one of her recent New York Times columns. But she was still among the welcome guests of Irish America magazine founding publisher Niall O’Dowd and Editor Patricia Harty at the 25th anniversary of the magazine at Sardi’s last week.
Among the guests were “Ironweed” author William Ken nedy, who had picked up the first annual Eugene O’Neill Award from the Irish American Artists and Writers a week earlier, and cast members of the criti cally acclaimed Broadway revival of “Finian’s Rainbow,” including Jim Norton, Cheyenne Jackson and Kate Baldwin. keith.kelly@nypost.com