Journal Sentinel Inc. negotiators are proposing a new system that would let newsroom managers schedule some reporters and photographers to be “on call” on weekends and holidays instead of working in the newsroom.
With a shrinking staff, the company wants more flexibility in scheduling personnel, management bargainers told the Milwaukee Newspaper Guild’s bargaining team Thursday. The move also would let more reporters work traditional Monday-through-Friday schedules, instead of adding more people to the local news desk weekend rotation and/or increasing the frequency of their shifts, company bargainers said.
Here’s how the system would work, under management’s proposal: The current crew of four local reporters and one to four photographers each Saturday, Sunday and holiday would be reduced by one or two positions. But one or two people would be scheduled to be on call for 12 hours that day. During that time, they would have to refrain from alcohol, be reachable by telephone and be available to come to work on short notice.
Each person on call would be paid $40 regardless of whether they were called to work. If they were called to work, they would be compensated for the hours worked only in time off, at the rate of time-and-a-half, with no weekend or holiday differential or callback pay, and they would not be subject to the current four-hour minimum overtime rate for work on a day off.
Guild bargainers questioned whether the comp-time-only proposal would violate federal overtime laws. We also asked how this would apply to part-timers who would have worked less than 40 hours before being on call. The management team said it would answer those questions when it gives us a formal written proposal on this issue. Our team will wait to see the proposal in writing before reacting further.
Also in talks Wednesday and Thursday, the two sides reached tentative agreement on jurisdiction language that allows editors to post brief online items that are either links to other online material or don’t require any reporting that normally would be done by bargaining-unit members. We also discussed provisions dealing with vacations, holidays, excluded positions and columnists, as well as a management proposal to compensate some interns solely in academic credit rather than pay. The next bargaining session is set for July 22.