51: december 2005 - update

Membership votes to ratify contract

Guild members Thursday ratified a 2005-2008 contract with Journal Sentinel Inc.

With a few absentee ballots left to count, the preliminary vote total is 110 in favor to 23 opposed. That's the most "no" votes ever cast on a contract recommended by the leadership and bargaining committee, reflecting dissatisfaction with the combination of the smallest wage package in years and rising health-care costs. A final vote total is expected early next week.

Guild and company negotiators will now put the contract into final form for signing as soon as possible. Most terms and conditions of the new contract will take effect as soon as it's signed, with others -- including new vacation provisions - kicking in on Jan. 1 and some taking effect in future years. Back pay could take several weeks to calculate and distribute; management says the payments are likely to be divided into several pieces, with the last piece (possibly as late as March) being the lump-sum bonus that the contract provides in lieu of a 2005 discretionary raise.

After the new contract is signed, it will be posted on the contract page in place of the current contract. Watch the blog and this page for more details of how various contract provisions will be implemented.

Jump to:
Health Care
Vacation
Victories for the status quo
Gains for all
Gains for specific groups
Tradeoffs

The agreement calls for across-the-board raises of 1.5% in January of 2005, 2006, 2007 and 2008, with the 2005 raise retroactive to last January; a discretionary pay pool of 1% in each year, with the 2005 portion only paid out as a lump-sum bonus rather than added to our paychecks; and minimum wage scales that will rise 2% in January of 2005 (retroactively) and 2006 and 2.5% in January of 2007 and 2008, with slightly larger increases in a few classifications.

On health care, perhaps the best news is that management did not prevail in its original proposal to eliminate all contractual guarantees and take complete control over our health benefits. The current premium split, in which the company pays 83% of the standard plan premium and we pay 17%, will remain in place through March 31. Then we will move into the same split as the rest of the company, on an eight-tier system that ranges from 79%-21% (for a single employee who doesn’t smoke) to 74%-26% (for a smoker’s family). For the next two plan years, starting April 1, 2007, and April 1, 2008, the only guarantee will be that the split will be no worse than 65%-35% for a smoker’s family.

As previously announced, vacation provisions also will change. Starting in 2006, all employees hired after 1994 will accrue vacation the same year they take it, while more-senior employees will continue to earn vacation the year before they take it.  

To compensate the less-senior employees for vacation that otherwise will be lost in the transition from one system to the other, each of those employees will receive an extra year’s worth of vacation, to be taken over the next six years, at a maximum of one extra week per year. Staffers at the four-week level will have the option of taking one of those weeks in cash, if all four weeks of time off could not be scheduled before the end of 2011. Staffers who leave the Journal Sentinel will not have to pay back the company for any vacation time that was taken before it was earned. Management’s original proposal called for such repayments. 

Here’s a summary of other contract provisions: 

Victories for the status quo meant keeping key provisions that management sought to eliminate or weaken, including: 

• Job security: Workers dismissed in an economic downsizing will continue to receive two weeks of pay for every year of service, more than anyone else in the company, plus 60 days’ notice or 60 days’ pay, on terms better than the law requires.

• Diversity: All of the contract’s diversity language and protection against harassment and intimidation will remain intact.

• Part-timers’ vacation: All part-timers will continue to be eligible for vacation on the same schedule as full-timers.

• Scheduling differentials: Night differential will rise from 70 cents an hour to 75 cents in 2007 and 80 cents in 2008; weekend differential will rise from 75 cents an hour to 80 cents in 2007 and 85 cents in 2008; holiday differential will rise from $5 a shift to $7 in 2006 and $8 in 2008 (in addition to overtime for the entire shift); and callback pay (for sudden schedule changes) will rise from $8 to $9 in 2006 and $10 in 2008.

• Diversity: The Guild and management will conduct an biennial joint review of wages by race, gender and age, and a joint committee will discuss whether to recommend changes in the pay system.

• Funeral leave: Bereavement leave for the deaths of uncles and aunts will rise from two days to three days for full-timers and from one day to two days for part-timers.

• Parenting leave: New employees who give birth will be eligible for the paid portion of maternity leave immediately upon hiring, instead of six months after hiring.

• Job security: The Guild will receive automatic notification of all letters of reprimand.

• Job postings: Management no longer will be allowed to express any preference in any way, not just through “preferred candidate” postings, for any applicant for any bargaining-unit job until all internal candidates have been interviewed. Management also will provide the Guild with an annual report on how many vacancies were filled by internal candidates and how many were filled by outside candidates. In exchange, the number of newsroom management jobs exempt from posting will rise from five to seven.

• Food service: A joint Guild-management committee will recommend ways to improve cafeteria service and will monitor cafeteria hours and service and vending machine operations.

• Jurisdiction: With a few exceptions, no one will be allowed to serve more than six months in any combination of temporary, internship and probationary status without being hired as a regular employee. The number of newsroom management jobs excluded from the contract’s protection will be cut from 58 to 55 by 2007. The amount of bargaining-unit work that those editors could do will be reduced.

• Part-timers: Minimum wages will rise from 80% to 90% of the full-time hourly minimum for part-time journalists with one to two years of service and part-time non-journalists with one to three years of service. Part-timers with at least five years of service could be reimbursed for up to 50% of the cost of educational courses. Part-timers will be entitled to the same orientation and in-house training as full-timers.

• Non-journalists: The Messenger classification will be abolished and merged into the higher-paid Clerk classification. Minimum wage scales for experienced News Information Center employees and Technical Specialists will rise by slightly more than other job classifications. The definition of Senior Editorial Assistant and the process for advancement to that level will be clarified. The biennial wage study will examine whether non-journalists are receiving their fair share of discretionary raises.

• Copy editors, page designers and picture editors: Production differential will rise from 65 to 70 cents an hour in 2008.

• Online producers and designers: The JS Online staff will become eligible for production differential of 65 cents an hour, effective upon signing, rising to 70 cents in 2008.

• Staffers who fill in for editors: Substitution pay (for filling in for editors outside the bargaining unit) will rise from $15 to $20 a shift in 2006. Management will agree not to force people to fill in for bargaining-unit editors if alternatives are available.

• New bargaining-unit members: The contract will eliminate provisions that exclude new hires from the first across-the-board raise if they received a discretionary raise in their first seven months, and that allow the company to deny discretionary raises to highly paid employees who transfer into the bargaining unit. Across-the-board raises will be paid to all bargaining-unit members on the payroll the previous Oct. 1, instead of the current cutoff date of Aug. 1. 

• Bargaining-unit editors: Senior Journalist status will be extended to the online production and sports coordinators, and to a new assistant graphics editor when the graphics coordinator position is next vacant. Cash overtime will be guaranteed for the food editor, effective upon signing, and the Entree editor, effective in 2008.
  

• Vacation for new hires: Employees hired from 2006 on will never be eligible for five weeks of vacation, a benefit that current employees earn after 20 years of service. It is not clear how many new employees will be likely to stay here for 20 years. This was a direct exchange for maintaining current job security provisions on severance and notice pay, which the company had sought to weaken.

• Vacation payout at retirement: Starting in 2006, veteran employees who “bank” all or some of their fifth weeks of vacation until they leave the company will receive payment for those weeks at the rate in effect when the vacation was earned, not at the rate in effect at the time of termination. The financial impact will vary among employees but apparently will not be a major factor for most people. This was part of a package that allowed us to improve funeral leave, parenting leave and jury duty leave provisions.

• Tuition reimbursement: For full-timers, the reimbursement for taking educational courses will be cut from 100% to 75%, with the same maximum reimbursement levels ($3,000 for undergraduate courses, $4,000 for graduate courses) as before. This benefit is used by only two or three newsroom employees a year. This was part of a package that allowed us to preserve pension benefits, raise minimum pay rates and win reimbursement at the 50% level for veteran part-timers.