Sports Illustrated’s foray into testosterone-driven journalism irked critics because — with the exception of its massively successful swimsuit edition — it’s a serious sports magazine. Were those 11 provocative photos of a prominently displayed Kournikova an attempt to spice up the 46-year-old magazine?

Sports Illustrated spokesman Rick McCabe claims that the controversial cover story explored a legitimate sports “issue” — the role of sex in women’s athletics. And associate publisher John Rodenburg says the magazine is financially fit; he’s guaranteeing advertisers a massive 3.15 million copies each week. “We have a bright future ahead of us,” he says.

Sports Illustrated is hardly fodder for any magazine deathwatch. But like others sports mags, it faces increasing pressure from a few tough new competitors: male-targeted magazines and ambitious sports Web sites.

These are certainly healthy days for the magazine industry. Ad revenue is up 17 percent from this time last year, according to the Publishers Information Bureau. Ad pages rose an impressive 14 percent, portending yet another robust year for the industry.

But sports titles can’t take part in the parade. Sports Illustrated’s ad revenue grew only an anemic .2 percent, while its ad pages dropped nearly 6 percent. Its ad-rate base hasn’t risen in years.

Last month, Sport and Condi Nast’s Women’s Sports & Fitness announced they would fold. Both joined Inside Sports, which closed two years ago (ironically, it had been subsequently folded into Sport). Sport’s ad revenue plummeted 22 percent for the first six months of the year; Condi Nast chairman S.I. Newhouse Jr. said Women’s Sports & Fitness would close because “the readership of the magazine did not develop as we hoped it would.” Other sports titles with sagging ad revenue include Runners World, Sporting News, Sports Afield, Tennis, Bicycling, Fitness and Motorboating & Sailing.

Although ESPN the Magazine, which launched in 1998, has had an impressive debut (its ad revenue rose 59 percent during the first six months of the year), general manager Michael Rooney acknowledges that even publications blessed with big brand names have to work harder than ever to lure advertisers and readers bombarded with media choices. “The world is changing, and traditional sports magazines have to adjust to that. We’ve already seen a contraction in the magazine business.”

Rodenburg also admitted that business is “getting tougher and tougher.” He believes Sports Illustrated’s slow start will be offset by revenue gains from the Summer Olympics in September.

Roberta Garfinkle, director of strategic media services at McCann-Erickson, reports some advertisers held back early this year so they could make a bigger splash during the Olympics. Automakers have also cut back their ad spending 6 percent during the first half of the year. And amid governmental pressure, Philip Morris agreed last month to stop advertising its cigarette brands in magazines. The loss was part of the reason Sport threw in the towel, according to Marcus Rich, president of the magazine’s publisher, Emap.

“Sports and men’s magazines are very dependent on automotive advertising, and they’ll be hit by tobacco losses too,” says Steven Cohn, editor of Media Industry Newsletter, which tracks the magazine industry. “Media is infinite, but advertising is finite. You can’t take it for granted that everything will be as hunky dory as it was before.”

The lackluster performance of sports magazines this year does make one wonder what will happen once those Olympic torches blow out and impatient sports fans turn increasingly to the Web for scores, news, video clips and other content. Web sites haven’t yet cannibalized sports magazine readers to any significant degree. But as the sites become more sophisticated — offering original content, real-time scoreboards, video and audio clips, chats with athletes and fan message boards — magazines have to ask themselves what they can offer that the Web can’t. “I don’t believe this medium is about sharing space,” says Mark Mariani, president of sales and marketing at SportsLine.com, which publishes CBS SportsLine.com among other sports sites. “Over time, I think we’re going to divide and conquer.”

Sports Web sites have been growing their readership swiftly, although they, like other Internet ventures, have been pressured to stem their losses. (Rivals.com, which operates more than 500 sports-related Web sites, last week laid off 40 employees.) Nevertheless, from April 1999 to May 2000, SportsLine.com saw its unique visitors rise 28 percent, from roughly 3.3 million to 4.2 million. Unique visitors to ESPN.com, the leading sports site, grew 22 percent from 4.2 million to 5.4 million, while CNNSI.com’s traffic figures increased 29 percent, from 1.9 million to 2.5 million.

Jim Walton, president of CNN/SI.com, says that sports sites will become even more popular as more people gain high-speed access to the Internet, which will mean better video and audio connections. He also says advertisers will increasingly divide their budgets into different pockets. More than ever, he says, advertisers want integrated packages involving television, Internet and print. Just advertising in, say, Sports Illustrated, isn’t as desirable as having a presence on CNNSI.com and television. “More and more, we’re selling advertising across multiple platforms,” Walton says. “And there’s going to be even more integration in the future.”

As a result, Garfinkle says magazine salespeople will have to rev up their pitches to advertisers, while editorial staffs will have to come up with attention-getting stories that draw readers … and maybe even make them drool.

Get ready for a lot more swimsuit issues.

And it’s well more than the sums other tech execs with similar mega-holdings are shedding these days. So far this year, Steve Case, for instance, has sold $28.4 million worth of America Online stock; Meg Whitman has traded roughly $98.9 million of her eBay holdings; Amazon.com’s Jeff Bezos pocketed about $20 million from a May sale; Yahoo CEO Timothy Koogle cashed in a paltry $11.4 million; Scott McNealy unloaded $22.5 million worth of Sun Microsystems shares; and Bill Gates — the planet’s richest man — has made out with about $153 million worth of MSFT, according to Securities and Exchange Commission filings.

Other high-profile insider shareholders such as Oracle’s Larry Ellison and Yahoo!’s Jerry Yang are far easier to track when it comes to their equity sales: Neither has parted with a single share since January.

Perhaps the only high rider who makes Dell’s trades seem like chump change is Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen, who’s dumped about $4.7 billion of MSFT this year alone, and has filed to sell another 12 million shares. But Allen no longer works for the software company, and for years has used the windfall to influence the direction of new technologies through his investment vehicle, Vulcan Ventures, and to simply tickle his own fancy with stuff like the Seattle Seahawks football team, a rock ‘n’ roll museum and a telescope to search for aliens.

Dell spokesman Jon Weisblatt insists there’s nothing unusual — or telling — about his boss’ billion-dollar profit taking. “He’s not trying to divest himself of his holdings,” Weisblatt says. “It’s just routine for him to sell shares every quarter. It’s just routine money management.”

To be fair, the Austin, Texas, PC pioneer still owns 343 million Dell shares, worth an estimated $13.9 billion. His stock sales this year represent about 2.5 percent of his total holdings — a higher percentage than Gates, who sold a mere .2 percent, and McNealy, who cashed out of less than 1 percent, but lower than Case’s sale of 5.7 percent of his shares or Whitman’s 4.9 percent sell-off. Besides, most financial planners attest to the importance of spreading one’s wealth in various investments to offset risk.

But for tech entrepreneurs like Dell, to whom legions of investors have relinquished their faith (and money), selling so much stock seems like an ominous sign, since holding on to an enormous stake is viewed as a symbolic showing of confidence about the company. Take for instance, Ellison, who hasn’t sold any of his 690 million Oracle shares, worth roughly $60.5 billion, for several years. It’s not that the guy is frugal, but after you’ve cashed out a couple hundred million for Japanese-style mansions, multimillion-dollar jets, and an America’s Cup yacht you don’t really need a whole lot more. Besides, Ellison has so much faith — or at least ego — riding on the success of his company, he surely wouldn’t cash out just to invest elsewhere. “Ellison is always very aggressive in advocating and promoting his company,” says Donald Selkin, chief investment strategist at Joseph Gunnan in New York. “He always says he’s going to pass Microsoft in terms of market cap.”

The trading patterns of CEOs like Dell and Ellison are closely watched because they suggest their sentiments about their company’s prospects. Dell, after all, should be the No. 1 believer — and he knows better than any one else what’s going on within the company. So last month, when he sold 1.75 million shares for an extremely cool $83.4 million — adding to other multimillion trades this year, many wondered whether this ongoing “diversification” means he’s lost at least some faith in his firm’s future.

“You always have to wonder whether an insider is selling right at the top,” Selkin says. “Maybe he knows something more than the general investing public. I don’t want to imply any sinister motives, but you can piece two and two together.”

David Coleman, editor of Argus Research’s Vickers Weekly Insider Report, which tracks insider buying and selling, says Dell’s increased rate of selling in the past few years has correlated to the company’s slowing sales. “His selling activity did pick up considerably,” Coleman says. “And any change of trading patterns is noteworthy because it might show a lack of confidence in future opportunities.”

So what’s Dell doing with all his dough?

It’s not as if he’s going on lavish spending sprees; Dell’s known to live quite modestly for a man of his enormous means. Instead, he’s been diverting some of his personal wealth into other ventures. He started his own investment firm, MSD Capital, specifically to manage his personal wealth, and now owns stakes in several start-up tech and dot-com ventures, including CarsDirect.com, which sells vehicles over the Web.

Some believe Dell has a knack for spotting tech trends. After all, that’s how Dell Computer got started. And some of his past investments in such companies as Rambus and Cerent Corp. have clearly been right on the mark. But because people see him as such a visionary, he may have to curb his selling habits of his own company, lest risk further investor defection. Bullish talk is one thing, but on Wall Street, money has the loudest voice.

And Michael Dell’s not the only one at Dell Computer who has been taking lots of profits. The PC maker’s officers and directors sold more company stock last year than executives at any other U.S. company except Microsoft, according to a Vickers report. Last year, Dell insiders sold more than $2.09 billion in stock, compared with $4.26 billion for Microsoft’s executives.

“This is a telling signal that there’s been a price malaise in its stock,” Coleman says.

The company’s still on a growth curve, but it’s no longer the Wall Street darling that it had been for a good part of the ’90s, when investors could routinely expect monster growth each quarter. The stock has been in a prolonged slump, closing Wednesday at $40, down from its 52-week high of $59, reached last March.

“I believe its glory days are over; I hate to say it, but it’s old technology,” Selkin says. “Technology investors are now more interested in fiber optics, telecommunications and semiconductors.”

Some believe handheld devices and broadband technology could make personal computers obsolete. And even though PC sales are up about 10 percent from last year, that pales in comparison to the 20 percent to 30 percent growth the industry saw a few years ago, says Stephen Baker, an analyst at PC Data in Reston, Va. “It’s a maturing marketing,” he says. “Things are getting tough.”

About a month after Dell made his most recent sale, the company reported second-quarter fiscal earnings that exceeded Wall Street’s expectations, but because the PC maker’s revenue growth fell shy of most forecasts, the report was viewed somewhat negatively and the stock dropped.

“While we expect Dell to continue to deliver on the bottom line, we are skeptical that the company will be able to meet the 30 percent revenue growth expectations on a sustainable basis,” wrote US Bancorp Piper Jaffray analyst Ashok Kumar, who recently downgraded the stock from a “strong buy” to a “buy.” “We continue to believe that Dell does not have adequate earnings power in notebooks, server and non-system revenue to offset the secular weakness in consumer and commercial desktops.”

Nevertheless, Dell has his defenders, who are shrugging off his recent stock sales as routine.

“I don’t think he’s losing confidence in the company; he may just be looking at other ventures,” says Wendy Abramowitz, an analyst at Argus Research in New York. “I wouldn’t see his sale of Dell shares as a sign he’s getting out of the business. He’ll remain there for a while.”

Sure, it would be more comforting if we saw Dell actively re-tooling his company to take advantage of the next wave of devices instead of selling off stock to invest elsewhere. But, as AG Edwards & Sons analyst Jimmy Johnson, puts it: “If you got nervous every time an investor sold, you would never buy anything.”

Charting the sellouts

Figures from the SEC

Amid such a public relations nightmare, the Chicago-based airline has gone into crisis mode. But how does it respond? So far, it’s chosen a less-than-satisfying tactic: saying sorry.

United this week took out full-page ads in several newspapers, apologizing for letting down customers during the hectic summer vacation season. “This isn’t getting us where we want to go,” United CEO Jim Goodwin says in the ad, which depicts a departure board full of delayed or canceled flights.

And on Thursday, the company threw its best customers a bone, announcing that its premiere frequent fliers — mostly business travelers who log at least 25,000 miles a year — would receive bonus miles to compensate for its embarrassing number of delays and cancellations. United also will waive schedule change fees.

But for frequent business travelers, do miles really matter, since their employers are picking up the tab anyway? What United seems to be forgetting is that most passengers aren’t asking for miles; they just want the basics — flights that leave on time (or leave at all) and land in the correct place. Apparently, that’s been too much to ask this summer.

In his letter to Salon, Jack Mingo explained how he recently put his 14-year-old daughter on a United plane in Oakland, and instead of going straight to Detroit, it abruptly landed in Denver. She then was shuttled to Las Vegas and Minneapolis before arriving in Detroit the next day. Her compensation? A $6 phone card.

Yes, it’s going to take a lot more than miles and apologies in the local newspaper — which analysts are calling “embarrassing” and “stupid” — to quell customer complaints.

Now, one can only wonder what United will do to appease investors.

The company on Thursday warned that its third-quarter profits would miss expectations, because — surprise — customers are bolting to other airlines. United says it won’t meet the already-lowered $2.60 to $3.20 a share earnings range it issued in July. The company expects to lose as much as $150 million this summer from all the turmoil. “Although booking patterns remained strong through early August despite poor operating performance, booking levels have since fallen on the adverse publicity surrounding the cancellations that occurred in early August,” Goodwin said in a press release.

Investors took the news as expected, sending the stock — which traded at $79 in January — down another dollar to close at $48.50.

“This is a total airline meltdown,” says Joe Brancatelli, a columnist for biztravel.com, which covers the airline industry. “Things are continuing to spiral out of control, and if it doesn’t get its act together quickly, it could have a long-term impact.”

After all, Brancatelli says, a prepared written apology or a few extra miles won’t win back passenger confidence, especially business travelers, who provide nearly half of the company’s total revenue. “If United offers impossibly low fares, that may appease the general public, but not heavy business travelers. Corporations that are putting employees on the road aren’t concerned about getting the cheapest fare. They need an airline to be reliable.”

Stephen Klein, an airline analyst with Standard and Poors, agrees that all-important business travelers could defect in mass, unless United resolves its labor conflicts soon. “Business travelers can’t tolerate even the slightest delays, because there’s no reason to travel if they miss their meetings. Because of this, they tend to shy away from airlines facing a potential strike or other problems.”

Klein believes the P.R. crisis, which amounts to daily media accounts of problems at the nation’s airports, is putting increasing pressure on the airline to settle its dispute with pilots. “They have to be thinking whether it’s worth settling to buy peace. After all, look at how much they’re losing in terms of market share, revenues and the value of their stock.”

United has been in contract talks with the pilots union since December 1998, but scheduling troubles began after the pilots’ contract came up for renewal in April. Seeking better pay and working conditions, the pilots began rejecting overtime work. But the pilots say the flight cancellations have more to do with the airline’s failure to hire enough pilots to maintain its packed flight schedule.

“The pilots individually per their contractual rights are not willing to fly extra time on their days off,” says Capt. Ken Bradley, a spokesman for United’s pilots union. “But even though this overtime issue is what the media has focused on, the reality is that United hasn’t properly staffed itself.”

Further souring relations is United’s proposed $11.6 billion merger with US Airways. Union leaders oppose the deal, fearing that United’s 10,500 pilots will lose seniority if the two companies become one.

United, which is in the process of hiring 1,300 new pilots, hopes to have a contract by Labor Day. Although a week ago, that seemed too optimistic, United is under the gun to resolve its woes.

“There’s a great deal of media attention and increasing governmental pressure on the corporation,” Bradley says. “And it appears that all the negative public attention they’re receiving is causing them to move forward.”

Illinois Attorney General Jim Ryan last week followed the lead of five members of Congress in asking the U.S. Transportation Department to investigate United’s services and business practices. Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., met Thursday with United’s Goodwin and the president of the pilots’ union to share his concerns about the deadlock and disruptions.

“Our goal is to have a contract as soon as possible,” United spokesperson Chris Brathwaite says. “We want an agreement as soon as we can get it to build confidence with customers and employers. And we will do whatever is necessary and possible to provide the service that our customers have come to expect.” Which after this summer means what?

That’s why the ATP Tour, which oversees the men’s tour, is trying to “celebritize” its next generation of top 10 players with a splashy new ad campaign, fittingly headlined “New balls please.”

“Research has shown that the public wants to learn more about the young players, so our goal was to show the strong attitudes of the new blood, and to try to make them slightly godlike — like gladiators in a duel,” says Ailana Kamelmacher, a spokeswoman for Burson Marsteller in London, which created the campaign.

The marketing push comes at a critical time for the ATP Tour — which last year raked in an estimated $62.5 million from tournament ticket sales, television contracts and sponsorships. That’s up from $55 million in 1997. With so much money at stake and a slew of sponsors to please, the tour can’t afford to let interest in the men’s game slip. Last year, it signed a $1.2 billion deal with ISL Worldwide, granting the Swiss sports marketing firm 10 years of marketing, broadcasting and licensing rights to the ATP Tour, its prestigious Masters Series tournaments and the world championships. And ISL already has attracted impressive international sponsors such as Mercedes Benz, Fila and Newsweek — all of which are betting men’s tennis will lure even more fans in the next few years.

The slogan of the ATP Tour’s marketing push may be a tad sensational. (Sampras, for one, sniffed that it’s not his “cup of tea.”) But the ads now appearing in Newsweek, USA Today, CBS and ESPN already have generated buzz.

At last week’s Masters Series tournament in Toronto, hundreds of fans lined up for autographs from tennis’s new stars, who were glorified on billboards throughout the city. And during ESPN’s coverage of the event, commentators continually talked about the feisty young players making their way up the rankings. “Last night was a major changing of the guard,” chimed ESPN commentator MaliVai Washington, referring to 20-year-old Marat Safin’s quarterfinal victory over Sampras in three sets. “It shows that these young guns aren’t afraid to take on the big guys.”

But what happened in Toronto early in the week also reflects the challenges the ATP Tour faces as it unveils its new, high-profile marketing campaign around the world.

Although Safin, a hard-hitting and hunky Russian, claimed the trophy, most of the 11 other players featured in the campaign — including Kuerten, Ferrero, Hewitt, Magnus Norman, Nicolas Lapentti, Nicolas Kiefer, Mariano Zabaleta, Roger Federer and Mark Philippoussis — crashed out in early rounds. And aside from Kuerten, who recently won his second French Open, none of these “new balls” has won a Grand Slam tournament, the only events that truly capture the world’s attention.

“It’s no longer possible for someone to make it to the finals and semifinals every week,” says ATP spokesman Graeme Agars. “The men’s game has gotten so deep that a number of different players could win any given tournament.”

That may be true, but it’s confused members of the public, which savors battles between the same top warriors. Last year, the rivalry between 30-year-old Agassi and 28-year-old Sampras was rekindled when they competed for the Wimbledon final (Sampras won) and the ATP World Championship in Hanover, Germany, where Sampras won again. But aside from their memorable semifinal meeting at this year’s Australian Open, where Agassi prevailed, the aging tennis stars have been plagued with injuries all year. After more than a decade on the tour, their bodies are breaking down, and every time either of them steps on the court, fans now have to wonder whether they’ll leave the match without wincing in pain.

The ATP Tour can’t afford to have Sampras and Agassi fans fade away from the game. Star power is at least partly responsible for a jump in ATP tournament attendance from 2.1 million in 1989 to 3.7 million last year. And the difference between a full capacity crowd at a tournament and an empty one can add up to big bucks, since ticket prices at some ATP events can be as high as $100. The only choice the ATP has is to market the heck out of the new breed. But it’ll be a challenge, especially with finicky U.S. television audiences who tend to watch only familiar, big-guns play.

NBC’s Wimbledon coverage of Sampras’ historic victory this year was the highest rated men’s singles final since 1995, while the USA-Czech Republic Davis Cup tie involving Sampras and Agassi was ESPN2′s highest-rated tennis event ever. By comparison, the French Open final between Kuerten and Norman turned into a ratings bust for NBC, even though it was a thrilling match.

That’s not to say there’s no hope. Overall, pro tennis is on an upswing. Both the men’s and women’s tours reported double-digit attendance increases at last year’s tournaments, and heartened by its Davis Cup coup, ESPN has added another 20 hours of tennis coverage to its 2000 schedule. But the men have been somewhat out-flashed by women players in recent years, with the Sanex WTA Tour successfully promoting players like Venus and Serena Williams, Martina Hingis and Anna Kournikova. Not only have these young divas made the covers of major magazines like Sports Illustrated, GQ and Forbes, but they’re drawing droves of new fans to come watch them play.

“The men’s tour is mimicking what the women did to get attention,” says Joe Favorito, a spokesman for the United States Tennis Association. “People in the industry have liked the new campaign, but it has gotten some criticism, too. If anything, it has people talking, and that’s good for the game.”

After a “gazillion” meetings, Agars says the ATP Tour and Burson Marsteller came up with the concept for the “new balls” campaign, which debuted late last month. “One of the things we’re trying to do is broaden tennis’s appeal by showing off its new look, as opposed to promoting Sampras and Agassi, who are at the business end of their careers,” Agars says. The ATP Tour won’t say how much it spent, but Agars admits it’s one of the tour’s biggest marketing campaigns ever.

For their part, the dozen players selected for the spread readily agreed to play gladiators for their photo shoots, and overall, they seem to like the attention. “I think it’s a good idea on the ATP Tour,” says the 20-year-old Hewitt of Australia. “You have sort of the high guys up there, the [Patrick] Rafters, Agassis, the Samprases, and then the new guys 23 and under sort of coming up, sort of biting at their heels.”

So what does the old guard think of the campaign?

Agassi diplomatically commented that it’s “good to introduce the players to the public or the public to the players.” But Sampras, who did acknowledge that marketing young players is a good idea, was a bit more critical: “They could probably find a better slogan.”

Says MOMA protester Michael Regan, who has been striking since late April for higher pay and job security: “A lot of people have the attitude, ‘I am an innocent bystander, why should I be affected?’ Unions aren’t what they were and people simply aren’t aware.”

Indeed, the Verizon strike — involving 87,200 workers who walked off the job first thing Sunday demanding better working conditions and more job security — has hardly been the subject of heated dinner party debates. After all, basic phone service hasn’t been disrupted, and customers across the East Coast have barely begun to feel the pinch of finding no one available to do repairs, establish new service or look up a number for them when they call 411. And when it comes to basic solidarity with unions, well, Americans just don’t seem that fired up about labor issues.

Americans still clamor for good working conditions, and corporations still tend to be characterized as big, nasty beasts out to squash worker bees. But, on the whole, Americans have come to accept layoffs, downsizing and other corporate malfeasances as facts of life. To many, the accepted solution to bad working conditions is to quit, not protest and put the public out. And, if people’s own lives are not terribly disrupted, the only way a strike gets their attention is through careful media orchestration.

“In each struggle, unions have to get the message out as to what the problems are,” says Judy Stepan-Norris, a sociology professor at the University of California at Irvine. “It’s not an easy thing to do.” And she’s not sure that Verizon workers have managed to create a compelling story to win vast public support.

In fact, the demands of the striking members of Communications Workers of America and International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers are hardly captivating to a public that has shown itself uninterested in organized labor. The unions are negotiating with Verizon for assurances that they will be able to organize employees without management interference at Verizon Wireless, the nation’s largest mobile phone provider, and they want limits on forced overtime for telephone operators and customer service representatives among other demands.

The issues may be important to the workers at Verizon, but they hardly have the kind of galvanizing force that, say, Cesar Chavez’s exposi of inhuman working conditions and criminally low pay on America’s farms did in the 1970s. Chavez had a story to tell — and it was one that Americans felt they had to act on, making his 1975 grape boycott a historical win for organized labor.

Though the issues they are fighting for may be much less dramatic, Verizon workers believe the strike will garner public support for their cause. “The people who work for a living understand,” says James Joyce, a computer technician at Verizon, which formed last month by the merger of Bell Atlantic and GTE. “I love my job. We all love our jobs. We want to stay here.”

So, many an American will ask, why are you striking?

“There seems to be greater public acceptance [of strikes] when lower-wage workers are involved,” says Howard Kimeldorf, a sociology professor at the University of Michigan, who has done extensive research on labor unions. “But there’s no tolerance for airline pilots, baseball players and others with high salaries.”

Just this past weekend, United Airlines canceled at least 270 flights at Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport, and put the blame on its pilots, who have refused to work overtime since their contract expired in April. And while the pilots’ union and United continued negotiating a contract with a federal mediator, passengers were seen on television bad-mouthing pilots for selfishly trying to bolster their own six-figure salaries without concern for thousands of stranded customers.

United pilot Herb Hunter, a spokesman for the pilots’ union, said he has sensed increased consumer disgust. Hunter was delayed heading toward Chicago on Saturday and walked back to the cabin to show passengers weather maps so they understood the wait had nothing to do with labor problems. “It’s unfortunate that some people in management have been saying it’s the labor dispute, and that is just flat not true,” Hunter told the Associated Press, adding that some United pilots have refused to work overtime, but that there’s no organized effort by the union.

Still, the perception exists that, collectively, pilots are choosing to harm customers.

“The one thing unions can’t do is alienate the public,” Kimeldorf says. “I think public support is critical in every case, because politicians care about that, and they’re the ones who eventually intervene in strikes. Not having public support also can compromise a union’s ability to stay together as a unit.”

Workers at the United Parcel Service seemed to understand this during their two-week strike in 1997, in which the company ended up adding 10,000 full-time jobs for part-time workers. The UPS labor victory was crucial because it was the first time in many years that organized labor was able to win public support for a major strike. Using extensive advertising and public relations, the Teamsters were able to portray union workers as victims, trying to earn decent pay with part-time positions. The union also effectively painted the ranks of UPS’ part-time employees as diverse, working-class Americans, and despite a disruption of service, customers seemed to forget that they weren’t getting their packages — or at least didn’t mind switching to another courier. “The union got out the message that workers were making under $25,000 and that there were lots of single mothers on the picket lines,” Kimeldorf says.

Says Stepan-Norris: “There’s no consistency in public support for strikes. Winning over the public is something labor unions have to earn. But that’s hard to do when the public is directly affected.”

Employees at Verizon have raised concerns that longtime telephone workers could be pushed out if the company hires lower-paid, nonunion employees at its fast-growing wireless division. “All we want is a few crumbs from the table and don’t give our jobs away,” John Lang, a 32-year veteran of Verizon, told the Associated Press.

But the public, so far, does not appear moved.

“Verizon, as far as I know, offers one of the best benefit packages in the corporate world. (Free benefits.) They also have excellent working conditions … So why are these issues on the table? I’m in total agreement with unionizing the Verizon wireless sector and seeking job protection. But come on folks, stick to the issues [at] hand,” wrote one visitor to the Verizon stock message board at Ragingbull.com.

On its Web site, the AFL-CIO says negativity toward unions has waned in recent years. In 1993, one out of three Americans felt negatively toward unions, compared to one in four last year, according to a study by Peter Hart Research, commissioned by the AFL-CIO. And union membership rose from 16.21 million to 16.48 million last year, according to the federal Bureau of Labor Standards — but that still pales in comparison to years past. In 1979, for instance, 21 million Americans were members of unions.

Now, union leaders are scrambling to boost their rolls, targeting women, minorities, high-tech workers and even college students, in an effort to keep the union spirit alive. To do this, the AFL-CIO now finds itself doing a lot of community outreach to explain what unions do, and why it’s important to support them.

“Making the public aware is an important piece of leverage,” says Elaine Bernard, director of Harvard University’s trade union program, an executive program for union leaders. “Unions have to show that they provide a long-term benefit that outweighs any inconvenience the public may feel. But it’s a challenge, because the public is a tough taskmaster.”

Big Brother — in the form of your company’s information technology (IT) department — may be watching your Web tracks, or reading that e-mail you thought your trash had long since incinerated. According to the American Management Association (AMA), company snooping is rampant, with software such as MicroData’s “Cameo” making it a snap for employers to pry as they see fit. For obvious reasons, most companies don’t publicize their detective habits to employees, except in the form of vague memos warning that inappropriate equipment use won’t be tolerated. But some firms are increasingly firing the violators.

Nearly three-fourths of the nation’s largest corporations, from Xerox to Salomon Brothers Smith Barney, check up on employees by monitoring e-mail, Internet use, computer files and even telephone conversations, according to a study by the AMA, a nonprofit organization that provides management and business training.

Companies say they don’t routinely (or randomly) spy on employees, but the AMA found that many would not hesitate to do so while conducting an investigation or a performance review. They’re also willing to take quick action: 28 percent of the companies surveyed say they’ve already dismissed people for misusing office equipment.

Just last week, Dow Chemical Company fired 29 Michigan employees, suspended another 42 and disciplined many others for sending pornographic or “violent” images on company e-mail. After receiving an employee complaint, the firm spent a week scrounging through thousands of e-mail files. What turned up on Dow’s servers were hardcore nudes and gory photos, including one of a motorcyclist who had been run over by a garbage truck. “There was a whole range of material, from mild pornographic pictures, to Sports Illustrated swimsuit photos, to hardcore and violent images,” says Eric Grates, spokesman for Dow’s Michigan headquarters. “The people involved crossed gender lines, and it wasn’t just the hourly work force. From Dow’s standpoint, it’s very disappointing this happened.”

The New York Times sifted through its employees e-mail late last year, and ended up booting 23 workers at its Virginia support offices for sending porn and dirty jokes. The investigation began after an employee used the company’s letterhead to try to get benefits for a friend. Because the e-mail was improperly addressed, it bounced back to the company’s server. A broader probe found several employees who had used the e-mail system improperly. “We had sent employees a copy of our e-mail policy, saying that reasonable personal use is OK as long as it’s consistent with conventional ethical standards, but that sending offensive material is not,” says Catherine Mathis, a spokeswoman for the company. “And in this case, it was very offensive material.” Mathis, however, stressed that the company doesn’t routinely monitor e-mail.

In yet another case last year, Edward Jones & Co., a St. Louis brokerage, got rid of 18 employees, warned 41 others and allowed another to resign, again for sending porn over the company’s e-mail system. “We have 15,000 employees to protect, so we can’t allow inappropriate behavior,” says company spokeswoman Mary Beth Heying, adding that employees signed a document before they received Internet access, agreeing not to use the equipment for inappropriate purposes. “It all comes down to what employees do on the company’s time.”

Viewing pictures of naked people, or just musing about them, seems to be a major preoccupation for the modern worker. A survey last September by Vault.com, a New York human resources site, found that of the 1,244 who participated in a survey, nearly 60 percent said they had received sexually explicit or otherwise improper e-mail messages at work.

At present, companies that do the most screening tend to be larger firms with more resources. Smaller companies often can’t afford to tie up their tech teams to act like detectives, and they run the risk of scaring off employees who might have chosen to work there because they prefer a “family-like” atmosphere, as opposed to an overly watchful corporate environment. (Salon.com, for instance, doesn’t screen employee e-mail or Internet usage, although it has the technology to do so.)

One Salon IT member, however, recalls how at his last job, he was appointed by the chief information officer to investigate employees’ Web surfing habits. “I was asked only a couple of times to log where the person was going on the Web. Both cases, I was told it wasn’t where they surfed, just the amount of time they spent surfing,” he says. “They said that they basically wanted to bolster their reason for firing them.”

When a complaint arises, companies say they have to check e-mail to protect against liability. If a female employee, for instance, complains to management about pictures of naked women being distributed through office e-mail, the company could have a sexual harassment suit on hand unless it puts a stop to it. At Chevron, for one, sexually charged e-mail, which contained such jokes as “25 reasons beer is better than women” was used along with other evidence in a sexual harassment claim settled in 1995 for $2.2 million.

But corporations also want to secure their secrets and make sure employees are being productive, and not wasting the workday entertaining themselves. “For those of us who sit in a little Dilbert cubicle while the whole world remains only a couple of keystrokes away, the temptation is enormous,” says Eric Rolfe Greenberg, AMA’s director of management studies. “People are shopping on the Web, playing games and trading stocks. They’re not using office technology for legitimate company purposes.”

To stop employees from feeling the mere temptation of surfing for porn, some companies have put up firewalls, preventing access to certain sites. Dow Chemical had done that, but employees found another way to view naughty images — through e-mail.

But it’s not just porn that’s causing distractions. Greenberg says he knows of a large insurance company where executives became addicted to playing computer solitaire. To combat the time-consuming problem, the firm organized an internal “Solitaire Anonymous.” Whenever members felt the temptation to boot up the game, they would call other members to discourage them.

Although playing too much solitaire or gawking at nude bodies clearly isn’t proper use of employee time, there are some fine lines. For instance, some employees may shop online while they’re at work, and as a result, don’t need to take a lunch break to buy the goods. Sending personal e-mail, as long as it’s not offensive in nature, also can take up less time than chatting with a friend or family member on the phone.

And then there’s the whole issue of privacy, or the lack thereof…

“Employees tend to believe that they bring constitutional privacy rights with them to work, but they don’t,” Greenberg says. “Companies have unrestricted rights.”

Kary Moss, executive director of Michigan’s American Civil Liberties Union, says the First Amendment doesn’t apply in the workplace, giving companies the right to decide what’s appropriate for employees to send on e-mail or view on the Web. Corporations also aren’t obligated to tell employees when they hunt through their e-mail or track their Web usage. Employers, however, must make their policies clear before they take action.

On that point, Kent Holsing, vice president of the United Steelworkers of America Local 12075, which represents many of the fired Dow Chemical employees, says his group will be discussing the dismissals further with the company. “The union cannot condone some of the images we’ve seen, but we believe that the actions taken by the company may have been too severe,” he says. “Employees feel that they were not well trained or educated about the policies of the e-mail system.” The punished employees, he added, are “shocked, disappointed and very stressed.”

Although the ACLU doesn’t plan on getting involved in this case, Moss believes employers have to make sure employees understand what degree of privacy they have in the workplace, and allow them to protect it. “In the last decade, as technology has improved, there’s been a decrease in employee privacy,” she says. She adds that employees should ask their employers about their practices, because companies can’t legally lie.

Dow’s Grates said the company had announced that an e-mail investigation was being conducted. But the key, Greenberg says, is for companies to post their policies prominently, so that employees know exactly what’s appropriate and what’s not. It’s not good enough to just send company e-mail with jargon most people won’t understand. “There should be an ongoing dialogue, and everything should be made perfectly clear,” he says.