Labor Strike Affects CA Ports

A strike that began at the Oakland, CA, port yesterday apparently spread to the port in Long Beach, contacts said today.

"They have basically closed all ports this afternoon in Long Beach," said one California paper trader.

The Southern California port action involved clerical workers, not longshoremen, contacts said.

In Northern California, a trader today said that a contact said that APM Terminals Pier 400 "has been on strike" since yesterday and that "today Yusen (Terminals), Evergreen, Hyundai California United Terminals, (and) China Shipping ... have added to the list."

Also at Oakland, on Nov. 20, Service Employees International union 200 workers disrupted shipping at the port, local media reported.

Port Hawk Pensioners Asked to Pay Co.

NewPage Port Hawkesbury pensioners told to pay back $5 million due to calculation error:
Former workers of NewPage Port Hawkesbury in Nova Scotia were told this week that they have been overpaid and will each have to pay back thousands of dollars.
Morneau Shepell Ltd., the current pension plan administrator, sent out letters to the pensioners telling them how much they will have to pay back, and blamed the calculation error on the previous plan administrator, Aon PLC.
The mistake was made while calculating the early retirement provisions years prior to the idling of the mill in 2011.  About 200 people who opted to take a specific front-loading pension option are the pensioners who are now said to have been overpaid, and owe a collective $5 million. Some people have found out they have been overpaid as much as $60,000.

Graphic Packaging to Buy A&R Carton's Beer and Beverage

Graphic Packaging to acquire A&R Carton's Beer and Beverage Packaging Business in Europe
Graphic Packaging Holding Company recently announced an agreement for one of its subsidiaries to acquire A&R Carton's Beer and Beverage packaging business in Europe. The deal includes two manufacturing facilities that convert approximately 30,000 tons of paperboard annually.

Canadian National Printing Association Announced

Formation of New National Printing Association Formally Announced: PISC and CPIA have formally announced the formation of a new printing association to be called Printing Industries of Canada (PIC). PIC "will serve as the national voice of the industry and will actively support and promote the health and growth of Canada’s printing industry," and will be officially launched in April 2013.

Magazines Continue Tablet Commitment

Magazines Double Down On Tablet Commitment: The magazine industry’s faith in the future of tablets is not easing up, even though advertiser support for digital editions has been slow in coming and these platforms still represent a small fraction of overall distribution for most books.
Leading among group publishers is Hearst, from whom iMonitor counted 89 apps, followed by Time Warner with 84, Conde Nast with 83 and Future Media with 82.

43% of Magazines Have Both Print, Digital Growth

GfK MRI: Over 40 Percent of Magazines Have Concurrent Print, Digital Growth: More than 40 percent of magazines surveyed saw concurrent print and digital audience growth in the fall of 2012, according to the most recent study by GfK MRI.

Next Issue Expands Title Offerings

Next Issue Expands Title Offerings Outside 5 Founding Companies:
Next Issue Media, the company behind the unlimited magazine app Next Issue, is a joint venture formed by five of the largest domestic publishers—Condé Nast, Hearst, Meredith, News Corp. and Time Inc. To offer readers more options, the company announced Thursday that it is expanding its iPad catalog beyond these five companies. The new offerings will include magazines from publishers like Mansueto Ventures, New York Media and American Express Publishing, among others.

BPA Members’ Circulation: Digital Now 21%

Digital Accounts for 21 Percent of BPA Members’ Circulation:
The number of publishers reporting digital copies is growing, new numbers for media-auditing firm BPA Worldwide show. A total of 532 BPA print titles reported digital circulation for the June 2012 cycle—an increase of 6.4 percent when comparing the December 2011 period.

Wired's Puzzel; Only in Print

http://www.adweek.com/adfreak/wired-hides-sneaky-message-spines-its-2012-issues-145479

Wired celebrated its 20th anniversary year in 2012 with a hidden and quite old-school little print puzzle. If you stack the January through December issues with the covers facing up, it reveals a (frankly hard-to-read) quote on the spines that Wired founding editor Louis Rossetto made in the first issue, in 1993: "Our first instruction to our writers: Amaze us." A reader in Riverside, Calif., named Ben Allen was the first to notice the pattern—realizing after the first nine issues that it was spelling out a message. He quickly guessed the complete line with a Google search. The puzzle's makers, Eric Harshbarger and Mike Selinker, were wise to stick with Rossetto's pithy first instruction to writers. His second was: "We know a lot about digital technology, and we are bored with it. Tell us something we've never heard before, in a way we've never seen before. If it challenges our assumptions, so much the better."

Kodak Accepts Improved Credit Facility

Kodak Accepts Improved, $830-Million Credit Facility: Eastman Kodak has received and accepted an offer from the Steering Committee of the Second Lien Noteholders Committee for interim and exit financing totaling $830 million in loans. The commitment is superior to, and therefore replaces, the $793 million commitment announced by the company on Nov. 12.

Folio: People On The Move

People On The Move | 11.29.12:
Source Interlink’s Automobile Magazine has added Todd Lassa as its executive editor and Michael Jordan as senior editor. Lassa joins the magazine from sister publication Motor Trend, where he was Detroit editor. Jordan joins the magazine from Edmunds.com, where he was an executive editor and more...

ARM & UBM Tech Launch Signum

ARM and UBM Tech Launch New Digital Magazine:
ARM, a supplier and architect of digital semiconductor chips, has partnered with UBM Tech to launch the new digital magazine–Signum. The focus of Signum is to combine journalistic content with robust multimedia technology. 

Diversified Business Communications Buys Amazing Charts

Diversified Business Communications Buys Electronic Health Record Provider:
Portland, Maine-based b-to-b media company Diversified Business Communications has acquired Amazing Charts, a provider of electronic health records. The deal is intended to expand Diversified's Pri-Med division and its medical education business.