PNW Newspaper Guild Blog

Times Guild and management negotiators met today (Wednesday, Aug. 6) to further discuss contract proposals.

First on the agenda was the company’s proposal to change the way it handles employee cell phones.

Under the proposal, the company could reimburse employees $25 a month for cell-phone use or $35 a month for phones with e-mail capability, if you’re required to use a cell phone for work. This would be in place of issuing employees a company-paid phone.

Because so many of you had concerns about this, we asked several questions about liability for contracts and costs (both usage fees and equipment costs).

Management representatives said that they want to offer this as an option for people who don’t want to have to carry both a personal and work cell phone. Guild bargainers pointed out that this doesn’t seem to be what’s reflected in the language of the proposal.

Company bargainers said that they understood that an opt-in program might be more attractive to us; they said they would reconsider the language of their proposal.

What’s a little unclear is why they’d need a contract proposal to offer this kind of reimbursement plan, if it’s completely optional. Nothing in the current contract would preclude that.

We also spent some time asking more questions about the company’s proposed changes to the medical plan, and about the way things are handled now.

We’re now awaiting the company’s list of proposed bargaining dates in order to schedule our next meeting.

Bernie Lunzer, endorsed by the Pacific Northwest Newspaper Guild in the recent international election, gives an interview with Editor & Publisher outlining some new directions in regard to advertising employees and newspaper ownership.

Latest on The Seattle Times and Teamsters Local 174 negotiations:

Date: August 7, 2008
To: All Employees
From: Alayne Fardella
Subject: Quick Labor Update

You may have heard that on Tuesday, July 29 Teamster’s #174, which represents our transportation drivers, gave us a 30-day notice terminating the current labor contract. Doing so meant that the union would be free to engage in what it called a “work stoppage”. You’ll recall that the local union representatives have consistently refused to meet with us since November, agreeing to only a handful of dates. We were very disappointed at the threat of a potential “work stoppage” after so little bargaining.

The International Brotherhood of Teamsters (IBT) from Washington, D.C. has now requested to be part of the discussions. Top representatives from the IBT are planning to join us in bargaining on August 14. The IBT, the Teamsters Joint Council, Local #174 and The Seattle Times has agreed to:

Stop the clock on the 30-day termination notice to allow for a 14-day negotiation period. After that, the clock will resume, leaving 23 days until a “work stoppage” could occur.

2) Suspend rate reductions for drivers hauling lower weighted loads, a provision of the current contract.

We’ve said all along we’re looking for successful resolution. After only seven meetings so far, we are hopeful that the upcoming participation of IBT may help move the discussion ahead in a meaningful way.

We respect all of our employees and how challenging it is to be in our industry at this time – it is certainly not for the faint-hearted. We continue to be fortunate to have our local ownership’s unwavering commitment to the mission of serving the community with journalistic excellence. However, the decline in revenue continues to put our business at considerable risk. We must look to every avenue for cost savings to help us get through this economic downturn and address the structural changes needed to survive.

I will keep you informed as we, hopefully, move forward. As always, if you have questions, ask your department head, Chris Biencourt or me.

Thank you for your continued hard work and your partnership in protecting our future.

Alayne

Our brothers and sisters in Maine met with the potential buyers of the Blethen Maine Newspapers and so far, so good. Here’s the latest, from the front.

From Guild Administrative Officer Liz Brown:

The Guild negotiation team at The Seattle Times cancelled a bargaining session scheduled for Wednesday in order to meet privately and work on counter proposals.

The next Times negotiation session will be from 1 to 5 p.m. Wednesday, Aug. 13, in the Vancouver conference room of the Denny Building.

We hope members who were planning to attend tomorrow’s session will be able to attend as observers on Aug. 13. For the protocol to follow as observers, please scroll to an earlier post.

The Portland Press Herald is reporting that a group of local buyers has surfaced with interest in purchasing the newspapers in Maine owned by The Seattle Times Co.

Buying these papers and borrowing $230 million to do so was a bad business decision, and unloading them–depending on the terms–could help save the Blethen family’s ownership of its Washington newspapers.

So says Ted Rall, in a column filched from AltWeeklies.com. As our mamas told us, who will buy the cow when they can get the milk for free? Newspapers must stop giving away their product for free and cut out slimy little aggregators like the Blog who don’t do original reporting and steal material from those fitting the bill for reporting infrastructure.

Interesting idea, but it will never happen. What do you think?

On Tuesday, many of you got the e-mail from Alan Fisco of Seattle Times management about Teamsters 174 giving 30 days’ notice of their intent to terminate their contract between the union and the company.

This means the Teamsters could go on strike or the company could lock them out after that 30 days is up.

Liz and I will be in P-I bargaining on Wednesday, but I wanted to give you a little more information in the meantime:

Q: Which Teamsters are these?
A: Teamsters 174 drives the big trucks. This is the group of workers that the Times has been trying to outsource. (A deal with a company called Penske to handle that recently fell through.)

These are the drivers who came out with us and walked our picket lines for 7 weeks in the winter of 2000. They were out there solely to support us, and many of us who were here for the strike feel strongly that we owe them a debt of honor.

Q: So what does that mean for the Guild?
A: Between the proverbial rock and hard place, frankly.
What it will ultimately mean will be up to Guild members who work at the Times.
The Times bargaining team will be discussing this and other matters later this week, and we’ll update you when we know more.

Remember: We have some time yet before things would start happening. There’s still time for the Times and the Teamsters to work this out, and I hope for all of our sakes that they do.

This is a really big deal and it’s not good news, but let’s try to keep our wits about us, OK?

Thanks,
Yoko

(Comments off because I’ll be away all day: Please send any thoughts on this subject to info@pnwguild.org.)

The Guild is receiving lots of feedback on a negotiation proposal by The Seattle Times to require some employees to provide cell phones and/or personal digital assistants (like Blackberries) for use on the job. Some people think it’s a terrible idea, others see some benefit in it, but everyone thinks the $25 to $35 proposed as a monthly reimbursement is way too low.

We’ll be asking the Times about this proposal on Aug. 6. In the meantime, here’s a story from the Los Angeles Times and business cell phones and taxes.

Guild and management representatives met today to discuss the rising cost of health care and the company’s proposal to make changes to current benefits.

It was great to see so many of you there, listening in today. Hope you’ll be able to keep coming.

We looked at a lot of numbers and asked a lot of “what ifs,” and we’ll get you a more complete report on what we heard and what we’re thinking as soon as possible.

One of the key issues is whether to move from a composite rate to one based on level of usage.

Under the current contract, you pay the same for insurance whether you have employee-only coverage, yourself and a spouse, or yourself, your spouse and your kids.

The company’s proposal would mean that having coverage for dependents would cost more than employee-only coverage.

That’s one of the many issues we’ll have to weigh as we look at this issue.