May 12, 2004 

NEW FIVE-YEAR AGREEMENT REACHED

AT TIMES DIGITAL

15.9% In Wage Increases, No Retrogressions 

            Tentative agreement on a new five-year contract with New York Times Digital has been reached.  The settlement, which contains no retrogressions, provides for five annual 3% wage increases, fully retroactive to March 31, 2003.  These annual increases will yield a total of 15.9% in compounded increases over the five-year term of the Agreement.  One of the union’s major bargaining goals was achieved when management agreed to make all Guild-represented employees eligible for the Bonus Program which, until now, applied only to non-Guild employees.  Under this program, staffers will be eligible to receive up to an additional 10% of their salary in any year in which they meet all of the goals and criteria set forth by the Program. 

            Other gains include the following. 

·                    The union was able to convince the company to adopt exactly the same Ethics Policy that the Guild negotiated with The Times.  That means that Guild employees here will be subject to a more liberal and permissive ethics policy than the one first introduced by Times Digital management. 

·                    The creation of a new, higher-paying, Guild-represented position, Chief News Producer, will provide more of a career path for Guild employees. 

·                    The newly-revised New York Times Long-Term Disability Plan which provides that employees will be able to take one paid personal day off per year, was adopted for the Unit. 

·                    A side-letter provides that, if employees convert paid overtime into comp time, it will be done at the rate of one and one-half hours for each hour of overtime worked. 

·                    A guarantee was won of all pension benefits for the entire length of the agreement. 

·                    The guidelines for the use of interns have been negotiated. 

·                    Some jurisdictional disputes have been resolved. 

Final contract language is expected to be agreed to during the next several days.  Once that is done, copies of the tentative agreement will be distributed to all Guild employees at Times Digital, and a ratification vote will be scheduled.  The bargaining committee has unanimously recommended acceptance. 

            New York Guild President Barry Lipton and Secretary-Treasurer Bill O’Meara led the bargaining team; the Unit Bargaining Committee was initially headed by Guild Unit Chairperson Kate Aurthur and also included Guild Unit Officers Brent Murray, who took over for Aurthur when she took a leave of absence, Mike Nizza and Lisa Tozzi. 

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05/12/04