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I've been asked why I haven't reported the Santa Barbara (Calif.) News-Press employees' resounding victory against the union-busting newspaper's owner, billionaire Wendy McCaw. The National Labor Relations Board filed complaints against McCaw's newspaper similar to those the NLRB filed against the Hawaii Tribune-Herald and each newspaper faced a trial in 2007.

The judge in the Santa Barbara trial, which went first in September, announced his ruling last week that was overwhelmingly and unequivocally in favor of the Santa Barbara employees, ordering the reinstatement of illegally fired reporters with back pay and other sanctions against the newspaper. Champagne corks popped and everybody's feeling pretty good about it but I'm not reading too much into it yet.

McCaw announced she would appeal the judge's recommendation to the NLRB, and we'd expect the Tribune-Herald to do the same in a similar situation. Deep Pockets McCaw and the Stephens Media-owned Tribune-Herald both like delay and use it to advantage. Constant delay in the collective bargaining process between the Hawaii Newspaper Guild and the Tribune-Herald is a tactic  being targeted in new NLRB complaints against the newspaper which will be heard in a separate trial now tentatively set to begin in March.

But in Santa Barbara, union attorneys are filing for an injunction that would reinstate the fired employees immediately, lessening the impact of appeals and delays, but even that will take four months if granted, one of the attorneys said.

And though the anti-union thread runs strong through both cases (notorious union-busting attorney L. Michael Zinser represents the News-Press and the Tribune-Herald), they are not altogether similar and different judges heard each case. So while it's encouraging to see what happened in the Santa Barbara trial, which I was sent to California to cover in September, it's not exactly a template for what will happen in Hilo.

For these reasons I thought it was a little too much insider shop talk with not enough real local impact to bring it up here. But since several people asked, I really don't mind trumpeting the news and sharing the links. BTW, the legal briefs have only just been handed in this week by the attorneys in the Hilo case -- the NLRB's brief for the Guild was 102 pages -- but at least now it's in the hands of the judge. I'm hoping we get a decision within 60 days.

And in case you're interested in more about Santa Barbara, Craig Smith's Blog has some of the best insight, scoops and links.