PEROSI SAYS THE AIR QUALITY IS SAFE

At long last, now there is, officially, a Business Casual Dress Policy at S&P.

It’s not so much that the New York Newspaper Guild – or any other union for that matter – is in the habit of seeking regulations about how members have to dress to come to work. It’s just that McGraw-Hill officials and then the managers of certain departments were unilaterally instituting dress codes, so we thought it best to make the policy uniform (no pun intended).

First, the McGraw-Hill people were coming up with the shirt-and-tie kind of code and then they were having Business Casual Fridays. Then they expanded the Business Casual Fridays to every day of the week. When that happened, we figured now is the time to pin them down on it.

It became official last week when Guild and S&P officials signed a policy agreement. It’s the way we said it would be in last week’s “Spotlight,” you can wear neatly pressed slacks, collared shirts, khaki-style pants, casual skirts or dresses, sports jackets, casual shirts, dress shirts, golf shirts, casual footwear and dress shirts.

After reading last week’s “Spotlight,” some of our members said, hey wait a minute, how about sweaters? Well, even though sweaters don’t appear in the signed document, both Senior Director of Workforce Initiatives and Human Resources John J. Gillen and his predecessor, Bob Temme, who’s still around (although not physically) as a consultant, both agreed sweaters have been worn up until now, they’re appropriate and they can continue to be worn.

What we can’t wear are jeans, torn or worn clothing, athletic wear including sweat pants and shirts, carpenter pants and overalls, shirts with inappropriate messages or graphics, halter or tank tops, Spandex (or other form-fitting clothing), work boots, beach-type shoes or sneakers and baseball caps (other than Newspaper Guild hats).

Both Guild and S&P officials went into the negotiations with a mind toward keeping the status quo (with the exception of mailroom “uniforms,” which we’ll get to in a moment). When we got into discussion about unacceptable attire, the Guild pointed out that some employees, at least since September 11, have been wearing sneakers.

Management agreed it has cast a blind eye toward the wearing of sneakers since the World Trade Center tragedy, and said it would do so for some time into the future, but wanted to maintain its position that sneakers are not appropriate business casual attire and they may be banned in the future.

Although Guild negotiators tried time and again to dissuade management from the notion that mailroom employees be required to wear S&P shirts, we were unable to do so. But we did manage to get them to agree to leave the lettering, “Mail Services,” off the shirts. Whether or not the employee’s name will be on the shirt will be left up to the individual employee.

Management has agreed that any changes in the dress policy must be negotiated with the Guild.

Just about the time the ink was drying on the dress policy agreement, the Guild received a communication from John Gillen, saying: “With the anthrax scare affecting media companies . . . McGraw-Hill is sensitive to the issue and concerned about the well being of their mailroom employees.” He said McGraw-Hill is contemplating requiring mailroom employees to wear protective gear. (We’re not sure protective gear falls under the heading of a dress policy, but we certainly want employees to be protected.)

We told him that we too, of course, are sensitive and concerned about the well being of all our members at S&P and asked for a meeting to discuss the protective gear in the mailroom as well as health and safety issues throughout the building.

We had a meeting Wednesday and scratched the surface of some issues and we see it as a springboard to delve into safety issues. Regarding the protective gear that McGraw-Hill may want to require for the mailroom, we were told that, thus far, it has been limited to gloves. We were told that S&P management is waiting for further direction on the subject from McGraw-Hill. They’ll keep us posted; we’ll keep you posted.

AIR QUALITY

When we mentioned the meeting to discuss safety issues in a previous “Spotlight,” several members contacted us with concerns about the air quality in the building at 55 Water Street. Director of Facilities and Operating Services Vic Perosi assured us that the air quality in the building is good.

As a matter of standard procedure, Perosi said, there have always been quarterly checks of air quality in the building. Since, September 11, he noted, the tests have been done weekly by CGI Industrial Hygiene and have all fell “within accepted standards.”

In fact, Perosi pointed out, the test results have been consistent with the results prior to the World Trade Center destruction.

“If the wind blows this way (from the WTC) . . . we get an odor,” Perosi allowed. “We close the dampers on those days. . . . We circulate inside air, the same thing we’d do on a 90-degree summer day.

“Some people seem sensitive to outside air. If the wind is blowing this way, some people are going to get symptoms, the same as (if) pollen (were in the air). There are no detectible levels (of pollution) inside the building.”

The day after our meeting, we received word from Gillen that “the proactive testing that is happening in the mailroom today (Thursday) is specifically for anthrax.” Gillen stressed that there is no indication there is any anthrax in the building, “but that we are doing this prophylatically to protect our workers.”

Gillen said test results will be available within about two weeks “since all the labs that are doing this kind of testing, as you can imagine, are swamped with work.”

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11/02/01