Management Ploy Delays Talks

Finding Company’s Hidden Proposals is a Long Process

Management’s Approach Sets Combative Tone

Guild Pledges to Find Booby Traps

Guild negotiators have begun the tedious and lengthy process of sifting out management’s proposals, which were hidden inside a rewritten contract that the company dropped off on October 31 and refused to discuss.

“Uncovering management’s proposals definitely is going to delay the process and the blame clearly lies with management, which seems intent on creating confrontation from the very beginning of negotiations,” said Unit Chair Debby Zabarenko. “It’s really just a continuation of the last round of talks when management tried but failed to sneak harmful language past us. We found the time bombs then and we’ll find them again.”

Another example of management’s apparent determination to have contentious talks came even before proposals were exchanged. That was when management, in the form of its outside lawyers, insisted that the Guild agree to insulting, potentially damaging and, in part, silly rules that would restrict our long-held right to bargain for ourselves as we see fit.

Management Wants Rank and File Members Barred From Talks

Management lawyers, under the direction of Thomson Reuters’ negotiators, Andrew Meagher, John Clarke and Ron Sparacino, insisted that the Guild agree to keep members from observing the talks and also wanted to prevent the Guild from bringing in its own members with special expertise to aid our Bargaining Committee.

“We don’t do business that way,” said Guild President Bill O’Meara. “Our members should and will attend negotiations as they see fit. The Guild, naturally, will not agree to these unprofessional and unproductive restrictions. Anyone who took a second to learn anything about the Guild would know that.”

Meagher, the head of Thomson Reuters News in the United States; Sparacino, a technical manager; and Clarke, global television editor and Meagher’s assistant, wanted to ban us from talking to the media. The Guild has gone to the media to press its case effectively in the past, and while the Guild hopes these negotiations will not force us to do so again, we certainly will not surrender that right.

Meagher and Clarke also want to potentially weaken our legal right to challenge the company if it declares an impasse in the talks.

Meagher, Clarke and Sparacino’s actions, through their outside surrogates, belie management’s claim that they want to have professional and respectful relations in the upcoming talks, Zabarenko said, adding, “the players may have changed in the new management structure, but the new ones seem intent on trying the same old tricks.”

Thomson Reuters: We’ll Meet in a Hotel Lobby

Sending the silly-meter to the far side, management’s lawyers wanted to meet to exchange proposals in the lobby of Manhattan’s Roosevelt Hotel. Maybe hiring a law firm that conducts business in hotel lobbies is part of management’s cost cutting, but, again, the Guild does not do business that way. The Guild will meet in its offices and at other times at the company’s offices. We will not meet in a hotel lobby.

The Guild had hoped to begin negotiations with a spirit of honesty and cordiality. If that’s not what management wants, the Guild and its members at Thomson Reuters can and will rise to the occasion. The tenor of the talks is up to management.

Revamped Performance Appraisals:

Cosmetic change but no real difference

Thomson Reuters managers sent out yet another updated version of their Performance Appraisal system, this time in the form of a Power Point. The good news: no more numerical ratings. The bad news: there will be descriptive ratings that are just about the same as the old number ratings. But whether they say you got a 1, or that you “far exceeded” expectations, or got an A-double-plus, the Guild’s advice on this still stands. This is a fundamentally flawed and damaging process that can only hurt Guild members and has no bearing on promotions or raises. Participate as little as possible.

As we’ve said before, you can without harm “input” management’s goals for you if your supervisor insists on this clerical chore (not all bosses do), but that doesn’t mean you agree to them. Beyond that, the Guild suggests you sign nothing and set no goals or targets.

Are You “Standing By”? Or Are You Working?

We’ve noticed a lot more Guild members are being told to “stand by” or be “on call” instead of working a full shift. Our Contract clearly defines the rules for “standby/on call” duty, which lets the company have a staffer ready to work at short notice when he or she would normally be off.

Standby pay is $8 an hour, but the moment the staffer switches to work mode – making a phone call to a government duty officer or other source, for example – then it’s work, and Guild members are entitled to a minimum of 3 hours of work pay on overtime.

It’s in management’s interest to keep you on “standby/on call” duty as long as possible and in your interest to be diligent about recording and reporting when you actually start working. So before you accept a standby arrangement, be sure you and your manager are clear about when “standby/on call” time begins and when it ends.

News Emergency ends; Managers still write the big story

The “News Emergency” called for the world financial crisis ended Oct. 15. As they have throughout the crisis, some middle managers are putting their names on the big stories, especially on weekends. Instead of paying overtime to Guild-represented reporters who cover the pertinent beats, editors-in-charge are writing the wraps.

Does management have so little faith in Guild reporters that the staffers covering this story all week cannot be left to write it on weekends? Or is it all about cheap labor? 

Manager to Guild Editors: No Need to Read it All

The financial crisis prompted some other strange decisions by Editorial management, including an edict from Jack Reerink, global editor, company news, telling Guild Desk editors not to bother reading the entire main story that’s supposed to sum up world developments.

This main daily story, called a TOPWRAP, is so important that writers and desk editors were told “to drop everything immediately” to work on it. Reerink went further in an Oct. 1 directive, instructing TOPWRAP writers to put any new material in boldface (a standard practice that points out what’s new in updated stories) and telling desk editors “to go over bolded copy only,” standing next to editors to make sure they complied.

To us that sounded risky. While Guild-represented editors need to follow the directives of managers about handling copy, this kind of instruction seemed to contradict longstanding Reuters policy on avoiding errors. Surely desk editors could not be held accountable for any errors that might creep into the copy outside the boldface passages.

After the Guild raised the matter with Global Editor In Chief David Schlesinger, Reerink revised his “don’t read it all” guideline for TOPWRAPS and equities reports.

Management’s “Oops!” On Code of Conduct

On Halloween, management offered a spookily familiar item on the Daily Briefing site: "Beginning Tuesday November 4, you will be asked via e-mail to electronically acknowledge that you have received and read the Code (of Conduct) and that you understand your obligations to comply with the principles and policies outlined therein.”

Management tried about 10 years ago to get Guild members to agree to the corporate conduct code, without negotiating with the Guild. We eventually reached agreement on terms that modified the Code for us. Management should know that we have a right to negotiate any changes. Management recognized its e-mail error, a bit belatedly, in a note from Brian Rhoads, the new managing editor, Americas:

 “Colleagues - Many of you will have seen a note on signing the code of conduct that went out earlier today. I would like to clarify that this does not apply to RAM staff in the Guild, who adhere to the code as spelled out by the collective bargaining agreement,” Rhoads wrote on November 4.

The Guild will take at face value Rhoads’ clarification, accepting that the initial message was not meant to manipulate our members into complying with an edict that does not apply to them. But it raises the issue of just why management couldn’t figure out how to send the original note only to those outside the Guild. After all, the ability to provide information to different segments of an audience is what Thomson Reuters is supposed to do very well.