January 12, 2005
Back on the Record
WORST
OF GIVEBACKS STILL IN MANAGEMENT PROPOSAL
After more than 18 months of
mostly closed-door talks and no new contract to show for it, Guild negotiators
resumed on-the-record bargaining on Tuesday to find that our managers want now
what they wanted then: to make Reuters a worse place to work.
As a crowd of Guild members
looked on, management negotiators used the on-the-record session to present
what they said was a slimmed-down package of proposals, but the worst
givebacks remained. Our bosses want us to accept a concession-laden package
that includes drastic cuts in health care coverage, a first-year wage freeze
and very meager wage increases after that, plus no guaranteed company pension
contributions.
“Even though there are
fewer of them, the remaining proposals are just as unacceptable to our members
as the ridiculously long list of givebacks management gave us more than two
years ago,” said Peter Szekely, chairman of the Reuters unit of the Guild.
The current Guild contract expired about 22 months ago, but remains in effect
while the new one is negotiated, thanks to a Guild-negotiated “evergreen
clause.”
Management negotiators did
not revise their initial employment security-weakening demand to put more
Guild members at risk of layoffs, outsourcing and automation, saying they
would discuss it with the Guild off the record. New York Guild President Barry
Lipton told management the Guild planned to include its employment
security-enhancing demand with an on-the-record counterproposal that the Guild
is preparing.
Management’s initial
proposal would roll back the hire date that immunizes employees against job
loss for almost any reason to Jan. 1, 1985 – when Ronald Reagan was still in
his first term as president – from the current Jan. 1, 1991. Other proposals
would further weaken employment security by reducing notice periods for job
cuts, cutting the three-year rehiring list to two years and giving employees
less protection against losing their jobs because of new technology.
Management’s retrogressive
proposals include:
A wage freeze for 2003 and annual
raises of 1 percent in 2004, 1.5 percent in 2005, 2 percent in 2006 and 2
percent in 2007.
Eliminating the company’s 8.125
percent contribution to our 401(k) retirement plan. The company would
promise only to match up to 4 percent of employee contributions. The rest
would be at management’s discretion. Although management had previously
guaranteed nonunion employees a minimum company contribution of 2 percent,
there was no such assurance in its proposal to the Guild.
Higher contributions and co-pays
to medical insurance that dramatically reduces coverage and easily could
cost an employee in the middle of our pay scale 1.125 percent of pay.
An end to the requirement that
employees in 24/7 operations must work either a four-day or “blended
shift” workweek. Our managers want the right to put all night and
lobster shift employees on five-day workweeks.
No time-and-a-half pay for daily
overtime in the first 40 hours of each work week.
Reduction in short-term disability
pay in the first three years of employment from 100 percent to 60 percent
for anyone hired after December 31, 2002.
A demand that the
Guild drop current litigation to force Reuters to restore its promise to
provide medical coverage to current employees after they retire. RAM CEO
Phil Lynch and his management team reneged on that promise about two and a
half years ago.
Management negotiators
explained a proposal – they called it a clarification – that would allow
them to transfer employees from one job to another in the same location, such
as from a Technician to a Controller or from reporting to desk editing. It
would even allow management to force a television Producer to become a
Photographer or a Journalist to become a Cameraperson. Our contract bars
management from transferring employees from one city to another or from one
job to another without their consent, except for transfers between or within
New York City and Hauppauge. The Guild believes that the contract doesn’t
permit a forced transfer from one job to another in any location, including
New York.
“We’re not interested in
this proposal. It’s obviously unacceptable,” said Lipton.
Since mid-April 2003, most
Guild-management bargaining has been in off-the-record meetings, which both
parties agreed not to report about in an effort to promote frank discussions.
While the process produced agreements on some secondary issues and helped
narrow differences on some other issues, it failed to produce a breakthrough.
Guild negotiators concluded that being unable to communicate with their
members outweighed the potential benefits of meeting off-the-record, at this
point.
“We want our members
to fully appreciate what it is we’re dealing with and what we’re trying to
do,” Lipton told management negotiators. He left open the possibility of
going back off the record when there is an opportunity to make progress.
Complicating the talks has
been a steady drumbeat of management announcements to move Guild-covered jobs
out of RAM and beyond the reach of our contract. Payroll, accounts payable,
and sales administration work has been moved to a Reuters-owned company in St.
Louis, technical jobs have been moved to the Radianz joint venture which is
due to be sold to British Telecom and Editorial and other jobs have been
exported to Bangalore, India, where Reuters has opened a large facility and
workers make one-sixth of what they earn here.
Last summer, Reuters
management said the work of 12 Guild-represented Editorial employees would be
eliminated because their work would move to Bangalore. Since then, more
proposed offshore outsourcing has been announced, including moving the
Washington-based Pictures Desk to Singapore and Washington-based Online Desk
work to Toronto. The Guild is challenging the transfer of jobs to St. Louis
and Bangalore and is still in talks over the proposals affecting the Pictures
and Online Desks.
While Guild members have not
seen a raise since March 2002, they have continued to enjoy benefits that were
taken away from non-Guild employees. For example, RAM bosses slashed 2003
company pension contributions to nonunion employees to a maximum of 6 percent
of annual pay. They also forced them to accept costlier health care coverage.
Besides Lipton and Szekely (Washington Editorial), the Guild Bargaining
Committee consists of New York Guild Secretary-Treasurer Bill O’Meara,
Reuters Guild Unit First Vice Chairman Dale Rippe (Hauppauge Technical),
Priscilla Sutton (New York Sales Administration), Eileen Moustakis (New York
Editorial), Grievance Chairman John Phillips (New York Editorial), Tommy
Kaminski (New York Technical); and Jeff Benkoe (New York Editorial).
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1/12/05