February 6, 2006

 

CU PACT SETTLED QUICKLY;

LONG REUTERS STRUGGLE

SUCCESSFULLY COMPLETED

 

After struggling almost three and one-half years at the bargaining table, Guild negotiators have won a tentative six-year agreement with Reuters that is in the process of being ratified. In much swifter talks, a five-year settlement with Consumers Union has been ratified by the membership in a 143-3 vote. There were two abstentions.

 

The CU agreement, which calls for 18.76% in compounded wage hikes, was wrapped up in 11 bargaining sessions  spanning five months. It includes a 4% wage increase retroactive to January 1 of this year, 4% on January 1, 2007, 3.25% in 2008, 3.25% in 1009, and 3% in 2010.

 

The new contract also features a reduction in the number of years required for job security from the current ten years to nine, beginning in 2008 and an improvement in medical coverage with the addition of well-child care for children up to and including grade 12. It had been previously cut off at age 2.

 

The Guild fended off company proposals that could have doubled health-care costs to employees while dramatically reducing their benefits. In the end, the employee-contribution formula remained the same and the Guild agreed only to minor increases in the cost of out-of-network dental charges and small increases in prescription costs that don’t take effect for two years.

 

One reason for the speed of the negotiations was the agreement from the start of the talks that both sides would limit their proposals to eight each.

 

The union was initially led in the talks by Local Representative Dona Fowler, backed by Unit Chairperson Bill South and other unit negotiators who Fowler described as “extraordinary.” N.Y. Guild President Barry Lipton and Secretary-Treasurer Bill O’Meara joined the team to take the helm in the final sessions.

 

For the past two years, Barry and Bill have also been leading the Reuters talks. Last week, Reuters ratification votes were cast in New York, Washington, Chicago, Los Angeles, Miami, Boston, Detroit, Atlanta, and Houston. A meeting has yet to be held in Hauppauge.

 

In a vote taken on Reuters’ “last, best and final offer” during the last week of September, 2005, although company officials had campaigned vigorously for members’ acceptance of management’s package, at the unanimous urging of the Guild negotiating committee, our members overwhelmingly rejected it, by a 278-4 vote.

 

What made the rejection unique was the fact that most of the members did not have much more to gain by sending negotiators back to the table. They voted NO in solidarity with a small minority workforce whose benefits and workweek were in dispute.

 

“A majority stood up for a minority, which is what a union is all about,” exalted Reuters Unit Chairperson Peter Szekely at the New York City ratification meeting.

 

The key areas of dispute when the proposal was rejected were health care for retirees’, job security for technicians, and the number of hours in the workweek for television employees.

 

Early in 2003, Reuters had unilaterally increased retirees’ share of their health insurance expenses and had announced that the company would stop making contributions to the cost of retirees’ health insurance for all but a handful of current “grandfathered” employees when they retire. The Guild had been in the process of arbitrating that action.

 

When the union returned to the negotiating table after September’s resounding rejection of the company’s offer, the arbitration was settled and a compromise was reached under which the most senior employees will be eligible to receive different levels of subsidized health insurance upon retirement.

 

Another stumbling block to an agreement was Reuters’ insistence on stripping job security from most of the technicians, whose jobs the company expects will be lost during the contract’s term, due to outsourcing. When the parties returned to the table after the No vote, an accord was reached on extended periods of time during which Reuters would have to offer the most senior technicians suitable jobs within the company, if they become available after layoffs were announced. If the jobs are non-union, the individuals will be “red-circled” and covered by the Guild contract in their new position.

 

Since the inception of Reuters-TV, about 15 years ago, its employees have worked a 37.5- or 38-hour workweek as opposed to the 35 hours everyone else works, and the union labored to correct the inequity in the new contract. Ultimately, Reuters agreed to reduce the TV workweek to 35 hours on July 1, 2007.

 

The pact calls for a 2% bonus to be paid for 2003, a 2.5% wage increase in 2004 (retroactive to August 15, 2004), 3% in 2005 (retroactive to March 1, 2005), 3% in 2006, 3% in 2007, and 3.5% in 2008.

 

The 2008 increase had been at 3% when the offer was rejected in September.

 

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2/06/06