January 25, 2001

STANDARD & POOR’S

 NEGOTIATORS

THROW  US  A  CURVEBALL

             We’re different from McGraw-Hill’s non-union employees because we have a contract and we expect guarantees. 

            That was the message delivered by Local Representative Bob Townsend at the conclusion of the last round of bargaining on Friday, January 19. 

            Standard & Poor’s negotiators didn’t act like they wanted to hear it. 

            Back on January 9, when things in negotiations appeared to be going well, company negotiators told us they’d give us a Health Club subsidy if we’d agree to the McGraw-Hill programs for adoption and death-in-family (bereavement) leave.

            Townsend, the Guild’s lead negotiator, told the company we’d accept the “package” if the two sickness-in-family days, not written in the contract but currently a practice, were put into the contract and labeled personal-emergency days.

            It looked like we had a tentative agreement on the four-item “package,” which would then become part of the contract.

            Until Stephen J. Macri, a lawyer with the firm of Putney, Twombly, Hall & Hirson and the company’s lead negotiator, last Friday presented us with language and threw us a curve.

            The company wasn’t guaranteeing a thing!

            The McGraw-Hill program gives employees five days off with pay for the adoption of a child and will reimburse employees up to $5,000. That’s not the greatest adoption policy in the world, but it seemed a little better than what we currently have, two weeks off with pay and no reimbursement.

            But the problem is the language proposed by Macri says: “Regular employees may participate in the McGraw-Hill Adoption Leave Program under the same terms, conditions and privileges as all other employees of the Publisher.”

            That doesn’t cut it. It means that if McGraw-Hill officials change the “terms conditions and privileges” for “all other employees of the Publisher” any time they see fit, then we will end up with the same thing. The contract won’t mean anything, they can alter the program tomorrow, next week or discontinue it altogether.

            We expected the Bereavement Leave Program would give us three days off for the death of a family member or an individual who isn’t related but is a member of an employee’s household. That was our understanding of what non-Guild McGraw-Hill employees were allotted.

            But then company negotiators hit us with language that said we would get “up to three days off with pay, depending upon the requirements of the particular situation.”

            Oh yeah, the requirements of the situation in whose eyes? No one covered by the Guild would have a guaranteed benefit!

            And the deal was the same as the one with the adoption. McGraw-Hill officials, in their infinite wisdom, can change the program, end the program or do anything they darn well want to the program anytime they darn well please, the contract be damned.

            The McGraw-Hill Bereavement Program – under its current terms – sometimes is better, sometimes worse, than the one we’re now operating under.  We get five days off in connection with the death of our closest relatives and one day off for others.  We figured the new personal-emergency days we were getting would help to make up the difference. If a close relative died, an employee could take the three bereavement days and extend the time off to five days by taking the personal-emergency days.

            Only, get this, the personal emergency days wouldn’t be guaranteed for the life of the contract either. The company proposed we participate in the “McGraw-Hill Emergency/Urgent Business” benefit “under the same terms, conditions, and privileges as all other employees of the Publisher.”

            Once again, it can change tomorrow.

            In exchange for all of this, the company would give us a Health Club subsidy.

             Only – holy cow! – the company doesn’t want to guarantee that’s going to last, either!

            “Regular employees may participate in the S&P Health Club Subsidy Program under the same terms, conditions, and privileges as all other employees of the Publisher. The existing program provides that the Publisher provide a $600 subsidy toward health club membership in a participating health club . . .”

            They think we were born yesterday.

            They want to totally homogenize us with all their non-union personnel so they don’t have to negotiate any of their programs, and the contract that protects us would mean less and less.  

            If we accept their language on these things, they’ll probably be back asking us to accept pay scales “under the same terms, conditions and privileges as all other employees of the Publisher” and then they’ll be asking the same thing for job protections.

            They’d like all guarantees to be out the window.

             As it now stands, that’s where the tentative agreement is on the Health Club, Bereavement Leave, Adoption Plan and Personal-Emergency Days – out the window.

           The next session is Wednesday, January 31. In addition to Townsend, the Guild committee consists of Unit Chairperson Ed Fannon, Caheim Murray of Mail Services, Dorothy Madison of Subscriber Services-Circulation Fulfillment, John Matis of Data Operations, Leo Larkin of the Analytical Department, Peter Burke of Credit Information Services, Marilyn Bissell of Cash Systems and Brian McGuire of Facilities and Services Management.