51: November 2005 issue

Management’s elimination of part-timers violates economic downsizing definition
Guild members elect same leadership for new year

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Management’s elimination of part-timers violates
economic downsizing definition

The Milwaukee Newspaper Guild has filed a grievance challenging the Journal Sentinel management’s decision to lay off part-time night police reporters Adam Bergstrom and Linda Hanig.

Editors claim the Oct. 31 action to terminate Bergstrom and Hanig, effective Dec. 31, is an economic reduction in force and they specifically said it had nothing to do with the reporters’ performance. In the grievance, however, the Guild argues the job cut doesn’t meet our contract’s definition of an economic downsizing, because the newsroom is continuing to fill other vacancies.

This is similar to the argument the Guild used to win its first layoff grievance 20 years ago. In 1985, The Milwaukee Journal tried to fire part-time jazz critic Kevin Lynch when it reorganized the paper’s entertainment department to create a weekly section called Xtra.

The grievance argued it was not an economic layoff, because the company was actually expanding the staff by promoting another part-timer to full-time and hiring a full-timer from the outside. An arbitrator agreed and ordered Lynch reinstated. The others involved kept their jobs.

The Guild also challenged both other management attempts to use the contract's layoff language: During the 1995 merger of the Journal and the Milwaukee Sentinel, the company eliminated about 100 newsroom jobs and fired 21 bargaining-unit members who refused to take buyouts. The Guild grieved on the basis that the company had failed to follow the contract’s seniority provisions. When the grievance was settled, 20 received cash payouts and sportswriter Ken Bunch was reinstated to a job on the night copy desk.

In 2001, the Journal Sentinel dismissed photo tech John Watson, at a time when other parts of the company also were cutting jobs. The Guild again grieved on the basis that seniority provisions weren’t followed. That grievance also resulted in a cash settlement.
Local news reporters could find themselves working up to 37% more weekend shifts if this layoff succeeds, the Guild estimates.

Hanig works the 5:30 p.m.-to-1:30 a.m. Friday night police shift and Bergstrom works the 5:30 p.m.-to-1:30 a.m. Saturday night police shift. Each had worked three shifts a week before being cut to one a week earlier this year. Management has indicated their shifts would be filled by rotation, but has not yet announced how that rotation would work. The Sunday day police shift already has been moved into the general local news weekend rotation.

Reporters involved in the current rotation work roughly eight weekend shifts per year, or about one every six weeks (a bit less in the summer, thanks to interns). If the Friday and Saturday night police shifts become part of the same general rotation, each reporter’s share of the weekend work would increase to approximately 11 shifts a year, or nearly one a month.

All of the Milwaukee Newspaper Guild’s officers and steward leaders have been returned to office for another term, the first time the local has had no turnover in either its top five elected positions or its top four appointed jobs. But several new faces are joining the leadership team as at-large Executive Board members or committee chairs.

At the local’s annual meeting Sept. 19, members re-elected Racine County Bureau reporter Jennie Tunkieicz to a second term as president. She’s also our Bargaining Committee chair and previously served as second vice president and secretary. Before joining the Journal Sentinel staff, she was president both of the Kenosha Guild and of the Guild’s Midwest District Council.

Also re-elected to one-year terms, starting Oct. 1, were:

New to the board are Jerry Ziegler, an assistant copy desk chief and steward leader, and Jan Uebelherr, a features/entertainment reporter. They succeed television critic Joanne Weintraub and sports copy editor Alex Mitchell, each of whom served one term and did not seek re-election.

At its first meeting, the board agreed to keep the steward leader team intact, naming Ghelfi to a record 10th term, representing the downtown photo, features/entertainment, business news and day graphics/design staffs; metro reporter Mark Johnson to a third term, representing local news reporters, Wisconsin bureaus and the MKE staff; sports design coordinator Jeff Maillet to a third term, representing the downtown sports, JS Online and News Information Center staffs; and Ziegler to a second term, representing the copy desk, night graphics/design staff, opinions staff, national desk and editorial assistants and messengers in the downtown newsroom.

Among the new appointments were transportation reporter Larry Sandler as Communications Committee chair. Sandler is also vice chair of our Bargaining Committee and a former officer whose total service in both elected and appointed office is the longest of any local leader.

Other new appointments include Susanne Rust, a medical/science reporter, as Health & Safety Committee chair; Mandy Jenkins, a JS Online producer, as Webmaster; and Kirner as technology coordinator. Sandler succeeds Joy Oglesby, an assistant entertainment editor; Rust succeeds metro reporter Graeme Zielinski, now leading our mobilizing effort; and Jenkins and Kirner succeed night copy editor Kat LoPiccalo.

Reappointed were Linda Spice, a Milwaukee County suburban reporter, as Human Rights Committee chair; Vikki Ortiz, a features/ entertainment writer, as Social Committee chair; Reid Epstein, a Waukesha County Bureau reporter, as newsletter editor; and Steve Potter, a metro editorial assistant, as newsletter writer.