ESCALATE
TO GRAND
LARCENY
________________________
BULLETIN
There
will be a membership meeting to discuss the status of negotiations this
Friday, April 6, in the auditorium at 55 Water Street at 11 a.m. A meeting
will be held at the President Street location at 3 in the afternoon.
_______________________
In the early rounds of bargaining, management negotiators attempted to
subtly pick our pockets with a smile. Nothing
blatant, like an assault to gut our contract. Just a little theft.
They asked us to go along with a calendar year vacation schedule as
opposed to our current June-to-May formula. Stephen J. Macri, Standard &
Poor’s lead negotiator, told us we wouldn’t have to wait to accrue vacation
time, we’d get “instant accrual” at the beginning of each vacation year.
He smiled and told us the “instant accrual” was against his advice,
but Vice President of Human Resources Bob Temme insisted on making the offer.
Of course, the flip side of “instant accrual” means you’re not
garnering days this year for next year’s vacation.
So, when you leave the company, you don’t get paid for the time
you’ve accrued for the future. Which
is a significant savings to the company. Watch
your pockets!
Then there was the proposal to get paid twice a month instead of weekly.
We’d get paid on the 15th and the last day of every month.
The company would take our weekly hours, multiply by 52 and then divide
by 24 to determine the figure for the twice-a-month paydays.
But, as Stock Reports Associate Editor Paul Willig pointed out, for
accounting purposes, there are actually 52.178571 weeks in a year, so we would
be taking it on the chin a little bit again.
Watch your pockets!
But now management’s crimes against the Guild have escalated from
petty theft to grand larceny. Last
week, when the talks turned to economics in the 13th bargaining session,
Standard & Poor’s had the unmitigated gall to propose freezes in both the
hiring-in salaries and the maximums (top minimums).
Sure, they’d give the people at the top of their classifications a
bonus, but not a raise. When a percentage increase is agreed to, they’ll pay
it out at the start of the contract year. But your weekly salary will remain
the same! It won’t help your pension! It won’t raise the amount you’re
allowed to contribute to your 401(k)!
Of course, all of this comes at a time when McGraw-Hill’s revenue rose
7.2% (in 2000) to an all-time high of $4.3 billion. Net income rose 10.9% to
$471.9 million. Earnings per share increased 12.6% to $2.41 per share.
Chairman, President and CEO Terry McGraw, himself, participates in a
bonus plan. He got a $1.4 million bonus in 2000.
But, then again, McGraw drew a salary of $900,000 in 2000. Maybe if the
bonuses S&P were going to be offering us were more than our annual salary,
then we could agree to a wage freeze.
Or maybe if our yearly salaries were in the ballpark of $900,000, we
could afford to accept a bonus system. But,
wait a minute, McGraw’s $900,000 salary, even with the bonus, wasn’t frozen
from the year before. No, he only
made $825,000 in 1999. From
we’re sitting, that looks like about a 9.2% increase in 2000.
But, not to worry, Terry’s not forgetting who’s responsible for
McGraw-Hill’s “eighth consecutive year of record performance.”
In the Annual Report, Terry gives a verbal Tip
of the ol’ Hatlo hat to “the 17,000 men and women of the McGraw-Hill
Companies whose dedication drives our performance, and whose creativity keep
uncovering new ways to help our customers reach their potential. I am pleased that we have been able to translate their
efforts into rewards that benefit our customers and shareholders.
Thanks to them, like never before in our 113-year history, The
McGraw-Hill Companies is ready for tomorrow.”
Oh, by the way, the calendar year vacation schedule and the
twice-a-month paydays haven’t gone away. Macri, a lawyer with the firm of
Putney, Twombly, Hall & Hirson, has indicated management will continue to
allow employees the ability to accrue vacations to eliminate that stumbling
block. Current employees, anyhow.
New ones, he insisted, will be blessed with instant accrual.
We haven’t agreed.
And, as far as twice-a-month paydays are concerned, Macri stressed:
“Bi-monthly payroll is a necessary element of any wage settlement for
this contract.” It’s expected
management will use a formula to make up for the time we were going to get
scammed. But we haven’t agreed to that either.
We’ve got a lot to talk about on Friday.
“UNITED
WE BARGAIN . . . DIVIDED
WE BEG”
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