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Guild wins case on retirement plans; settles case on health care benefits
Butler appointed as a steward leader
Newspaper Guild Candidate Q&A: Linda Foley
Newspaper Guild Candidate Q&A: Bernie Lunzer
Column: Crafting the language we live by
Guild wins case on retirement plans;
settles case on health care benefits
The Milwaukee Newspaper Guild recently won a case it brought to arbitration and settled a second case just days before an arbitration hearing was scheduled.
The Guild prevailed in an arbitration involving changes that Journal Sentinel Inc. made to the pension plan in 2006.
The company announced in the spring of 2006 that most employees with the company at that time could choose between staying in the existing pension program or shifting to a new plan similar to a 401(k) plan.
However, other employees - non-vested part-timers and employees hired after May 1, 2006 - were not given a choice. They were moved into the new plan.
The Guild argued that everyone should have a chance to make the choice. We also argued that the switch represented a change in benefits that should have been negotiated, and that it eliminated some people from the existing pension program.
In a decision announced Jan. 17, Arbitrator Jay Grenig agreed with the Guild's argument that the plan changes violated Article 9, Section 1, of our contract because certain bargaining unit staffers - new hires and part-time, non-vested employees - were excluded from pension plan coverage. He concluded that the company was wrong and that Article 9 of the Guild contract is not a "meaningless provision." He ordered the company "to offer employees excluded from the pension plan coverage effective May 1, 2006," and "to make those employees whole." Grenig retains jurisdiction in this matter to resolve any disputes that might arise over implementation of his order.
Now, the company will have to offer the choice between the traditional pension plan and the new plan to those who were not allowed to choose. This will affect 36 current employees - 13 full time and 23 part time.
The company is expected to contact those employees soon and offer them the choice that most of us got back in 2006.
Health care benefits
The second case involved changes in retiree health care benefits. The Guild's arguments were similar - that changes were being made that eliminated benefits without any negotiations.
The settlement extends existing language through the end of the current contract, at which time both sides can discuss changes as part of contract negotiations. The Guild did agree to allow the company to include wording involving stricter provisions for smokers in the most recent health care benefits package.
Butler appointed as a steward leader
Vince Butler, one of the Milwaukee Newspaper Guild's most experienced leaders, is back in a senior role.
The local's Executive Board has appointed Butler as a steward leader, overseeing contract enforcement, membership and mobilizing for the sports, JSOnline and News Information Center staffs. He will fill the term of Jeff Maillet, who stepped down, citing time constraints. Maillet, an assistant sports editor, was in his fifth term as a steward leader.
Butler, a sports copy editor, previously served five terms as a steward leader, in addition to one term as a vice president, five terms as a board member and several stints on our bargaining committee. He most recently was a sports steward.
Newspaper Guild Candidate Q&A: Linda Foley
Now in her fourth term, Linda Foley was elected president of The Newspaper Guild/CWA, AFL-CIO, CLC, in October 1995 and was sworn in as a vice president of the Communications Workers of America, AFL-CIO, CLC, in July 1997. She is the first woman to hold the office.
She was elected secretary-treasurer in 1993 and also was the first woman elected to that position. She is secretary-treasurer of the AFL-CIO's Department for Professional Employees and is co-chair of The Newspaper Guild International Pension Fund. Foley also has served as vice president of the International Federation of Journalists.
Before joining the union's staff in 1984, Foley was a copy editor and reporter at the Lexington, Ky., Herald-Leader. She is a member of the Board of Advisors for the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University, and in 2007 was recognized as one of its outstanding alumni.
Q: What specific actions would you take to increase Guild membership?
A: Working hand-in-hand with the CWA leadership, I will launch an industry-wide organizing program to reach out to every news professional. Newspapers have always been the core of the Guild - but there needs to be a new focus on new media and other non-newspaper sectors of media. We will create a team of professionals to work with locals to identify potential members and organize them in their geographic areas. Such an initiative is already under way in the San Francisco area. In addition, we will use CWA financial resources and the CWA membership to help organize across media companies, including in cities where we don't yet have Guild locals. The St. Louis Guild is already organizing Lee Enterprise properties throughout Illinois to build union power at that largely non-union media company. Under my leadership, the Guild has built a solid relationship with CWA leaders throughout the country - and that's critical because, frankly, without a good working relationship with our CWA colleagues, we won't have the resources to grow.
Q: How would you build a closer relationship between the TNG Washington office and Guild locals, especially small ones in need of the office's resource and expertise?
A: During my tenure as Guild president, every TNG local - no matter how small - that has asked for assistance has received the full support of our Washington office and staff. We have plans already in place to energize locals through the Healthy Local Initiative, which unfortunately, while launched more than a year ago, has languished under the current secretary-treasurer. I and my new team, including Scott Stephens, who is running for secretary-treasurer, will pair Guild veterans and staff with locals across the country to work on finances, mobilization, communications, membership outreach and transparency. We have to make sure the national office is in touch - and involved - all the time, not just when a contract is expiring.
Q: How would you and your staff work with locals to ensure strong contracts and fight efforts by management to undermine collective bargaining?
A: There is one truism in collective bargaining: What you do away from the table is more important than what you do or say at the bargaining table. The Guild locals that are healthy - and growing - have energized and mobilized their membership. As we build a virtual army of stewards and activists across the Guild with the help of the CWA, we will make sure every local has a motivated and large group of union activists who can link up with a national team of Guild professionals when the time comes for contract negotiations. The CWA's strategic industry fund, which has earmarked more than $2 million annually for media contract campaigns, will be tapped to enable us to run sustained and vibrant contract campaigns with many pressure points.
Q: What do you intend to accomplish in your first 100 days?
A: First, we need a thorough - and transparent - accounting of TNG finances. Second, we need a new commitment to rebuild locals that are in trouble. I will also begin an aggressive campaign to reach out to news industry workers who don't work in traditional ways, such as freelancers and part-timers. Finally, we will use our collective bargaining power to take leadership of the jobs situation that has been thrown into flux by the widespread use of new technology. Training and quality work will be the key components of our effort.
Q: After a hotly contested election that has forced people to take sides, how would you bring the membership together to unite behind your agenda?
A: Throughout my Guild career, I have fought many battles for the members. Occasionally there have been disagreements or high emotions among Guild leaders over how to conduct those struggles. If there is one thing I've learned, it's that being a Guild leader means fighting for the members every single day. That's what I've done, and that's what I'll continue to do as your president. There may be some who are engaged in this election for personal gain or to settle personal scores, and they may sit on their hands for a while after it's over. But most Guild leaders and activists are going to be engaged as long as the Guild continues to fight for them. I have united the Guild after hotly contested election campaigns in the past. By focusing on what unites us rather than what separates us is how I'll do it when I'm re-elected this time.
Newspaper Guild Candidate Q&A: Bernie Lunzer
Bernie Lunzer has served as The Newspaper Guild/CWA secretary-treasurer since 1995, as well as serving as supervisor to field staff.
Lunzer worked at the St. Paul Pioneer Press from 1979 to 1989, holding jobs in advertising, marketing, circulation and the newsroom. While in St. Paul, Lunzer saw the Guild through five contract negotiations, serving as a steward, unit chair and strike coordinator.
From 1989 to 1995, Lunzer worked for the Minnesota Newspaper Guild, serving as local representative and administrative officer. During that time, he was the lead negotiator for contracts throughout the local, including the Minneapolis Star Tribune.
Lunzer is a cum laude graduate of the University of St. Thomas in St. Paul, Minn. He lives in Silver Spring, Md., and is married with three children.
Q: What specific actions would you take to increase Guild membership?
A: We need to help each local create organizing committees of activists that focus on just organizing. We need to develop successful models of working with our existing employers on the future of the product, and our role in it. We need to show that Guild members have the creativity and passion to build a future. Then we need to build a network that shares our success and our ideals with nonrepresented media workers. I would use focus groups and develop professional materials to assist locals.
Q: How would you build a closer relationship between the TNG Washington office and Guild locals, especially small ones in need of the office's resources and expertise?
A: I want to expand the role of regional vice-presidents, and create a strong connection between locals and the full-time officers of the Guild. We'll also use staff to work with locals to develop a strategic approach to strengthening their local. When locals engage in self-examination and develop goals, we'll make certain they can identify the resources that are available to them. We'll also boost the quality of training at the district council meetings in areas that locals identify as the most needed.
Q: How would you and your staff work with locals to ensure strong contracts and fight efforts by management to undermine collective bargaining?
A: We'll have a meeting of all lead negotiators in the Guild, including our staff negotiators. We'll develop a national strategy for bargaining, with constructive approaches that address the most current demands of employers - with real solutions on countering those demands. When legitimate economic concerns are raised, we'll address them, but we won't accept not being included in longer term conversations on the future of the industry. Ideally, we'll do national training on joint worker/management committees, with the goal of pushing into areas that are normally not included in collective bargaining. Some locals have already been successful in such areas as health care, skills training and areas of professionalism and ethics. We need to insist on dialogues that expand the scope of our relationship as the industry addresses the current challenges.
Q: What do you intend to accomplish in your first 100 days?
A: Achieve consensus on a national bargaining strategy, get buy-in on a program of self-examination and strategizing for locals, with special emphasis on smaller locals that may be having difficulty. We'll also begin the development of professionally produced materials that extol the virtues of being in a Guild, from a member/activist point of view, for use in open shops and new shop organizing.
Q: After a hotly contested election that has forced people to takes sides, how would you bring the membership together to unite behind your agenda?
A: Again, by having the two meetings I've mentioned above, we'll take real input on how we go forward and we'll develop longer-term goals that are measurable - not just short-term strategies that result in quick programs that deliver. But I'll reach out to all locals, regardless of where they might have been politically. The future of our industry hangs in the balance, and that's what this election is about - developing a real consensus on how we move forward by listening and following through.
Crafting the language we live by
| The Guild's recent success in blocking company changes to our pension plan that would have negatively affected three dozen staffers represents one of our two most important missions: contract enforcement.
We are about to embark on the second one: contract bargaining. |
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The arbitrator said in his ruling in the pension arbitration that the contract language on which we based our case was not without meaning.
When Guild and company negotiators agreed to put that language in the contract years ago, it meant something to them and it still does today.
Making certain the company lives up to its part of the bargain that is our contract requires almost daily vigilance on our part. That's what we do and, as the pension arbitration shows, we are up to the task.
Most of our challenges to things going on in the newsroom or corporate policies we feel do not jibe with the contract are worked out with management cordially and quietly behind the scenes. Few of these challenges ever get to the stage of arbitration. That's why you probably don't know about all we do to protect the contract rights of Guild bargaining unit members.
With so much hinging on the language of the contract, contract bargaining, the crafting of that language, is perhaps the most important Guild mission.
In only a few months, contract negotiations will begin. Our current contract expires Dec. 31.
Stewards are organizing small group meetings in every department to determine what issues are important to you in this year's contract talks. Soon, as we did before the last round of contract negotiations, we'll do a survey to gather your thoughts on what your expectations are for the next contract.
Please let us know what you think.
This is your contract. It governs our work and workplace every day; we all have a stake in it.
And remember that only signed-up Guild members may vote on the next contract. So, if you aren't a member, sign up now and participate fully in the contract process.
Our membership drive, by the way, is in full swing and already has resulted in new members signing up. We welcome them and urge other nonmembers to follow their lead.
If you are a member, consider joining the Guild contract bargaining committee. It does require a commitment of time, but it's a valuable and, believe me, eye-opening experience.
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