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January 10, 2002 A
LOOK BACK AT 2001
With the devastating attack on the World Trade Center on September 11,
it’s impossible for anyone in New York, and particularly here in the
Financial District, to say he or she has had a good year. But, focusing
strictly on union business at Standard & Poor’s, the Guild had a
very good year, indeed. First and foremost, of
course, was the settlement of the contract – 16.4% in pay hikes over 51
months. Timing was everything in nailing down that one. We reached a
tentative agreement with S&P on Friday, April 20, while the economy
was showing signs of a downturn, but before it plunged. Before September
11.
It would be nice to say the union leadership was clairvoyant – that,
like the most cunning and talented financial prognosticators at S&P
and elsewhere, we had an inkling the economy was going to do a dipsy-doodle
and we knew we had better get an agreement under our belts as quickly as
possible. But that wasn’t the case. If there is anyone who can
take credit for the relative speed of the contract negotiations, it’s
the membership. You told the Guild leadership in pre-negotiation meetings
and in a pre-negotiation survey that you didn’t want long, drawn out
talks that you had endured in the past. So, as soon as we were able to
persuade S&P to sweep almost all of its most troublesome proposals to
the side, we shifted into high gear and put an agreement in our hip
pocket.
But, again, it was the membership who made it happen.
The support you showed the leadership during the negotiations
convinced management negotiators that we were speaking for the membership
at the bargaining table. S&P
knew we meant it when we said that you wouldn’t accept a salary freeze
at the top of each classification and be rewarded with a bonus instead.
They knew we meant it when we said you wouldn’t accept
twice-a-month paydays. Getting McGraw-Hill to agree
to 16.4% certainly wasn’t easy, but it would have been a heck-of-a-lot
tougher if the deal hadn’t been struck pre-September 11th and
we were negotiating in the current economic climate. It was in 2001 that we said
at least a partial good-bye to Bob Temme, the man whom the Guild dealt
directly with on labor issues (he’s been kept on as a consultant) and
said hello to his replacement, John Gillen. On the Guild’s side of the
ledger, after the very successful negotiation Unit Chairperson Ed Fannon
was re-elected without opposition. While negotiations fill the
Spotlight (OK, the pun was intended), some members might think that there
isn’t much going on union-wise between contracts. Not so. This year, for
example, the unit leadership has been busy paving the returns for two
individuals who had previously been laid off and appeared to be left to
dry somewhere out there on a rehire list. It wasn’t until the Guild
threatened to go to arbitration that S&P spread out a welcoming mat
for their return. The Guild was also busy
winning a measure of justice for another individual who had been a temporary
employee (a temporary employee for four years, can you believe it?) by
getting her put on staff and negotiating a handsome check as a settlement
for the wages and benefits she would have received had she been considered
an employee when she should have been. In a negotiation that spanned
months, 2001 was the year that we agreed on a dress policy at S&P.
Management said a dress code had been negotiated with the Guild years ago,
but we didn’t see any evidence of it and they weren’t able to show us
any evidence of it. Meanwhile, McGraw Hill kept handing down dress codes and
relaxed dress codes and individual managers kept coming up with new ideas
about what people in their particular departments should – or shouldn’t
– be wearing. Now, it’s official. The dress policy at S&P is
business casual. We’ve printed the particulars in previous
“Spotlights,” but, for the moment, let it suffice to say, except on rare
occasions, the guys don’t have to wear jackets and ties and the women
don’t have to wear business suits and heels.
In another negotiation that has spanned months, we’ve almost agreed on a
Code of Business Ethics. This is another topic that management said had been
negotiated with the Guild many years ago, but again we couldn’t find any
evidence of it and S&P couldn’t show us any evidence of it. As the
year came to an end, we had reached a tentative agreement on the Code of
Ethics, itself, and it was just the Affirmation Statement we’re haggling
about. The Affirmation Statement will say that you’ve received the code
and will abide by it. You’ll be asked to sign the statement. Up until now,
the Guild has urged members not to sign because the code hadn’t been
negotiated with the Guild. When the new code comes out, we’ll no longer be
making that request. It will have been negotiated. We’ll give you details
about the language in a future “Spotlight.”
After the September tragedy, the Guild took a lead in studying possible
long-term effects on those individuals who work near Ground Zero in the form
of the CWA-Newspaper Guild World Trade Center Project, spearheaded by
Deborah Wallace, First Vice Chairperson of the Guild unit at Consumers Union
and an expert on environmental health, and her husband, Rodrick, an
epidemiologist at the New York State Psychiatric Institute. As part of the
study that is ongoing, the Wallaces asked several employees at S&P to
don monitoring badges to measure organic compounds at the Water Street
facility. Specifically, they were looking for the presence of benzene, a
cancer-causing organic compound, with that test and, fortunately, none was
found. The Guild settled a grievance
filed for arbitration in 2001 without the necessity of actually proceeding
before an arbitrator. It dealt with the company’s refusal to grant Guild
employees the 401 (k) enhancements that had been granted to non-Guild
personnel. We thought we had language in the contract that would have
required S&P to make those improvements available to our people also.
The arbitration case became unnecessary, though, when it was agreed Guild
members would get the enhancements as part of our contract settlement. Also as a result of those
negotiations, the Guild got an agreement from the company to allow our
members to participate in the company’s health club subsidy program.
That’s another one of a niceties that S&P saw fit to offer to
non-union personnel and exclude Guild members. In an effort to keep that sort
of inequity from happening again should McGraw-Hill decide to offer
TransitChek to its employees (something S&P officials have been saying
is a distinct possibility), the Guild got a “me-too” agreement in
negotiations. If it’s offered to non-union personnel, Guild-covered
employees automatically get it. HAPPY NEW YEAR! # # # # # # # opeiu:153 01/10/02
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