September 14, 2007
Thomson-Reuters deal
worries British lawmakers
‘Lack of transparency’ about workers
The $17.5 billion
Thomson-Reuters deal looks like it’s going forward, with both the European
Union and U.S. Justice Department reviewing terms of the proposed merger.
But the British House of Commons is worried about what the impact would be
for Reuters staff – and that includes us Guild members.
“The House (of Commons) … is
concerned with the lack of transparency over the implications for staff
resulting from the proposed merger in light of recent cutbacks and
sub-inflationary wage rises for staff,” the members of Britain’s Parliament
said in a parliamentary motion. They said the transaction should be “subject
to the most rigorous scrutiny by all parties involved, including negotiation
with the unions representing affected staff.”
We’re concerned too, though the Guild has taken
no official position on the deal. Representatives from The Newspaper Guild,
the union group Unite – which represents Reuters non-editorial employees in
Britain – and Britain’s National Union of Journalists met with Reuters CEO
Tom Glocer, Executive Editor David Schlesinger and Mark Sandham, global head
of Human Resources in June (http://www.nyguild.org/ReutersNews/070626REU.htm).
We’ll discuss things again with Schlesinger later this month and keep in
touch with union-represented U.K.-based workers at Thomson. We’ll pass along
what we learn – which may be useful since despite regular “all staff” calls,
Reuters management has provided little specific information to us.
Here’s what we know about the
timing of the deal: The European Commission set an Oct. 8 deadline to decide
whether to clear the deal without conditions, according to the Hollywood
Reporter, which monitors the media. The Reporter said media rivals are
expected to raise formal objections to a quick clearance of the deal, and
that would oblige the Commission – the European Union’s antitrust authority
– to launch an in-depth, three-month inquiry into the proposed merger.
In the United States, the
Justice Department is also reviewing this transaction, with an initial
inquiry expected to last 30 days, followed by a second antitrust
investigation if required. There is no formal timetable for this second
phase, but in 2005 the average for this kind of probe was 134 days. It’s
unclear when the Justice Department started looking at this, so it’s tough
to predict when it will conclude.
CNN drops Reuters
Managers said they were shocked
when CNN announced it was dropping Reuters, a contract worth a reported $3.5
million. Reuters management said it was a failure to reach a “commercial
agreement” with the global cable network. But they had no satisfying answer
during a recent call with staff when a Guild member asked the obvious
question: wouldn’t it have been better to reach any agreement – even one
that offered services at a lower rate than Reuters management wanted – than
to lose this high-profile client?
Job appraisals
We’ve gotten lots of questions about how to
handle mid-year job appraisals, and there’s one easy answer: behave exactly
as you would for an annual appraisal. Be civil but noncommittal, sign
nothing and do not agree to set performance targets or goals. Anything you
agree to in this process can come back to haunt you. The mid-year appraisals
are new to some Guild members, but others have dealt with them in the past.
See also the Nov. 20, 2006 Common Sense (http://www.nyguild.org/ReutersNews/061120REU.htm).
The same advice applies to annual “formal” job appraisals, now due to be
completed by year’s end. To us, this seems timed to precede the completion
of the Thomson deal – possibly as a guide to who’s essential and who can be
“synergized”, at least among non-Guild workers. Don’t give them the
ammunition.
Erosion of Guild Tech work
The Guild is investigating the
sneaky erosion of Technical Operations work in the New York area. It works
like this: technical work is shipped out of the Reuters bargaining unit,
either to another Reuters company or to a subcontractor, while other
technical workloads are reduced by new technology. Management never notifies
the Guild or requests a partnership meeting, which is required under the
contract. The overall workload goes down, but no jobs are lost – at least
not right away. But because our work has gone away in unaccountable dribs
and drabs over the years, Tech managers are planning to cut jobs next
spring. And we suspect they’ll call it a basic economic reduction in force,
when in fact it’s really mostly a combination of automation and outsourcing,
for which anyone being displaced should get top-of-the-line severance of 3
weeks pay for each year of service plus 19 weeks and other benefits.
Severance for an economic reduction is only 2 weeks per year of service,
plus 19 weeks. Right now, Tech bosses are seeking buyout volunteers,
offering only 2 weeks a year, plus 19 weeks, plus a few additional weeks
based on length of service.
In the latest instance of Tech
work erosion, Hauppauge managers are outsourcing “software builds” and the
loading of operating systems into RSS computers to Hewlett-Packard. They are
also transferring the work of monitoring “TerraPops,” which has been done by
Hauppauge-based Guild-covered Controllers, to the company’s nonunion St.
Louis-based entity, Reuters America Operations LLC. In neither case did
management notify the Guild, as the contract requires. The Guild has filed a
grievance.
Job postings at Reuters,
but not for everybody
There
are some job postings at Reuters, but while managers pay lip-service to
developing careers here, not everyone is allowed to apply. A case in point
was an April posting for a Justice & Security Correspondent in Washington,
which was ultimately filled with an extremely able Guild member. But instead
of casting the widest possible net and allowing all qualified candidates to
apply, Howard Goller, the editor for political and general news in the
United States and Canada, limited the field to those in political and
general news in the Washington bureau and World Desk/Americas, cutting out
any applicants from Commodities, Equities, Energy and Treasury in
Washington. This was not a matter of getting the best applicants for the
job, but of making things easier for bureaucrats concerned with their turf.
Reuters Unit Chair Debby Zabarenko wrote in a letter to Goller protesting
this practice: “There's a lot of talent that could have enriched the
applicant pool. I understand that including these people may have been
administratively inconvenient since they have separate reporting lines to
bosses in New York or elsewhere. But surely this is outweighed by the
company's interest in having a larger field of qualified applicants and by
employees' interest in the chance to grow professionally and become more
valuable to Reuters -- especially, ironically enough … during Career
Development month!”
Goller’s response: “This was
just a reshuffling of the Political and General News team in Washington.” As
such, he said, no posting was required. But our position is, if you’re going
to post a job, let the most people compete for it. That’s the fairest way.
Thomas
the Tank Engine and Bangalore
You’ve probably seen the
stories about the massive recall of red-painted toy trains from the popular
Thomas the Tank Engine set – the red paint used in the Chinese factory where
the toys are made contains lead, which can poison children if they put it in
their mouths. It’s been on front pages around the United States, a huge
business story because of the size of the recall – 1.5 million pieces – and
the iconic nature of the product. But our first story, written in the
Bangalore newsroom, had a headline that didn’t exactly scream “Stop the
presses!” -- “RC2 to recall wooden railway toys, cites lead poisoning
hazard.” The second update on the story, written in Washington, put it all
in context under a headline that told the story: “‘Thomas and Friends’
railway toys recalled.”
It’s not really the fault of
the folks in Bangalore. There they were, thousands of miles from where
Thomas the Tank Engine and other toys are a childhood staple, with no way of
knowing they were underplaying a story that would draw attention from U.S.
consumers, foreign trade policy-makers and China watchers. This is more
proof that in journalism, as in real estate, location is key. You can’t
cover the United States from Bangalore, unless you know U.S. culture. That
kind of knowledge is scarce in Bangalore.
E-Common Sense?