December 30, 2003

 GUILD ORGANIZES NEW UNIT

             

New York Guild President Barry Lipton has announced that the New York Guild has organized the employees in the editorial department of the English Language Edition of The Jewish Forward.  The Guild has had a contract for decades covering employees of The Yiddish Language Edition of the Jewish Forward.  During the last round of contract bargaining with the Yiddish Forward, the Guild got management to agree to “card check”, which guaranteed that if the Guild succeeded in getting the majority of employees in an un-represented division to sign Guild membership cards, the paper’s management would recognize the new Guild unit without first going through the necessity of having an election supervised by the National Labor Relations Board.

            Local Representative Bob Townsend organized the English Language Forward editorial employees. Management quickly recognized the unit, and the Guild is now in the process of assisting our new Unit members in electing Unit Officers and preparing proposals for an initial contract.  Bargaining is expected to begin sometime in late January.

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 12/30/03