March 26, 2001

SIGNIFICANT  IMPROVEMENTS  REACHED  ON  JOB  SECURITY  ISSUES;

            The Newspaper Guild of New York and Standard & Poor’s have reached a tentative agreement on job security issues that will broaden recall rights when individuals have been laid off, give employees who are facing job elimination more “bumping” rights and combine two of the security groups from which employees are laid off and to which they will return, offering more opportunity to move prior to a layoff and more chance of a recall. 

            The tentative agreement, reached at a negotiating session on March 8th with the language initialed at another meeting on March 14th, also bars S&P from using temporary employees in a job classification or a lower classification in the security group from which an employee has been laid off. 

            The agreement sets the stage for the parties to delve into economic areas at the next session, which is Tuesday. 

            Under the current contract, S&P has an obligation to recall laid-off employees only in positions they have formerly held in their job security group. In the future, Standard & Poor’s will be mandated to recall layoff victims to those positions or to openings in lower-rated job classifications in their job security group. That obligation would be null and void if “such employee is not qualified, in the opinion of the Publisher, to perform the work of the lower rated job classification.” However, if the Guild does not agree with the Publisher’s evaluation, we have the right to grieve and arbitrate the decision. 

            Currently, an employee who is job eliminated, may “bump” only into a position he or she previously held. Under the new language, the job-eliminated employee could displace another employee in an equally or lower rated job classification within the affected security group if the employee to be displaced has not completed his or her probationary period. Again, the employee would have to be qualified, in the opinion of the Publisher, to perform the duties in the lower rated classification but, again, if the Guild disagrees with that determination, we would have the right to grieve and arbitrate. 

            There are currently four security groups: Rating Services – Credit Market Services, Information Services, Finance and Planning and Corporate Facilities. Employees are laid off in reverse order of seniority out of these groups and returned to openings in these groups. Under the tentative agreement, Information Services and Finance and Planning will be combined, giving employees in those areas more of an opportunity to move prior to layoff and more opportunity for an opening to occur when they’re on the recall list.  

TransitChek   

            The company has turned thumbs down on a Guild proposal for TransitChek – at least, for the moment. 

            It was back on February 28, that the Guild’s lead negotiator, Local Representative Bob Townsend, made a plug for TransitChek to be included in the next contract. He said up to $65 a month can be deducted from an employee’s pre-tax salary to be used for the subway, commuter rail, private bus lines or Amtrak. Employers pay a small administrative fee, he allowed, but they save money because they don’t pay Social Security and Medicare taxes on the deducted funds. 

            Townsend insisted TransitChek provides a golden opportunity for S&P to give its employees a benefit many would find very important at no cost to the company. He recalled how TransitChek was not one of the areas listed in the pre-negotiation questionnaire but how it was “written in” as being important by many Guild members. 

            Townsend said a person making $30,000 a year could save more than $250 a year by participating in the program.  

            The company’s lead negotiator, Stephen J. Macri, a lawyer with the firm of Putney, Twombly, Hall & Hirson, insisted TransitChek “is something which will require some substantial administrative apparatus” and said S&P isn’t willing to commit to that right now. 

            He noted there is legislation pending that would allow up to $175 a month to be diverted on a pre-tax basis toward transportation expense and that may make it worth the company’s while to put the administrative procedures in place. “We have brought this back to our company and are looking at it for the second half of the year. We propose a side letter saying we would provide the item on a ‘me too’ basis if it is adopted by McGraw-Hill.”  

            Obviously, a “me too” isn’t what we were bargaining for (and we haven’t yet agreed to the proposed compromise), but at the very least it would prevent the sour experience of what happened with the fitness club subsidy – McGraw-Hill providing it for the rest of the organization while leaving Guild-covered employees out in the cold. 

            The Health Club subsidy, as you know, was bargained in the current round of negotiations and put into effect immediately. One hundred seventeen Guild-covered employees signed up for the New York Health and Racquet Club, 63 for the New York Sports Club and five for the Equinox Fitness Club.  

            Also at the last two sessions, proposals were exchanged in the area of vacations, but no agreement has been reached.

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