GUILD LIFTS ITS BOYCOTT OF CODE OF ETHICS SIGNATURES

           At long last -- after about a year of negotiation, which is longer than it took to settle the entire contract -- an agreement was recently reached on a Code of Business Ethics and you can sign its affirmation statement.  In fact, we might even go so far as to urge you to sign it.

          Here's why:

          During the long, drawn-out, sometimes tense and sometimes emotional negotiations concerning the Code of Ethics, management representatives (Bob Temme, who then handed the torch to John Gillen) insisted that signing a statement that you will comply with the code would be a condition of employment.

          We said we're not going to agree to the invention of new ways for people to get fired.

          S&P wouldn't budge.  They intended to get everybody to sign the affirmation statement.  Our heels were dug as firmly into the ground.  S&P could not hang people's jobs over their heads to get them to sign.

          In the end, both the Guild and S&P agreed to disagree and remain silent on the question of the company's ability to fire anybody who refuses to sign the Code of Ethics' Affirmation Statement.

          Everybody, both sides agreed, will probably have no problem signing the way the code is now written.  Our committee -- former Local Representative Bob Townsend (he has been replaced by Local Representative Steve Zavatski), Unit Chairperson Ed Fannon and Grievance Chairperson Marilyn Bissell -- were able to negotiate away the onerous aspects that were there when the Guild was telling you not to sign it.

          So what happens if people refuse to sign?

          Well, S&P maintains it has the right to fire them.  Company officials will have to look long and hard to determine if they want to test those waters.

          And if they do?

          The Guild maintains just as strongly that the company doesn't have the right to terminate employees for refusing to sign the Affirmation Statement.  If the company gives someone the axe, we have the right to take the case to arbitration.

          S&P officials have said they're not looking forward to terminating anyone for refusing to sign the Affirmation Statement and the Guild certainly isn't looking forward to a long arbitration battle (during which the employee would be out of work) just to prove they can't, so we're all hoping everybody signs.

          From the start, the Code of Ethics proposed by S&P wasn't terrible.  For the most part, its rules and regulations were the same you'd find in any place of employment and violations were the types of things you could be disciplined for anyway, even without a Code of Ethics.

          One thing, however, stood out like a sore thumb.  If you observed any conduct by another employee in violation of the code, you had a "responsibility" to "rat" on the other employee (even if you did it anonymously).  After a lot of haggling, we got company negotiators to agree that you only have to "rat" on someone if you have "direct knowledge of serious criminal behavior by other employees."  And, once again, you can report it anonymously.

           The original Code of Business Ethics that was handed out by S&P, without negotiations with the Guild, forbade "any act that might result in a conflict, or the appearance of a conflict, between the individual's self-interest or the interests of another organization, on the one hand, and the McGraw-Hill Companies' interest on the other hand.

          Well, once again through hard bargaining, we were able to delete the phrase about appearance of a conflict. Under the current version, you cannot engage in any act that might  result in an actual conflict of interest.

          In a previous "Spotlight" we warned you:  "Beware! Big Brother May Be Watching!"  The warning stemmed from language in the former code that read: "While it is not the corporation's practice to review electronic mail messages stored on company computers, electronic networks and other information processing and storage devices, the McGraw-Hill Companies reserves the right to monitor and review the content of any such electronic mail messages for any business or legal purpose without informing the sender or recipient of that electronic message, or the person in whose possession those files reside."

          While we couldn't get the language banished from the current code, we did persuade S&P officials to agree that such monitoring "will not be done in an arbitrary or capricious manner and unless it has a legitimate (emphasis added) business or legal reason to do so."

          So, we can't rescind the warning altogether.  You must still beware, Big Brother may still be watching.  Don't keep any files in your computer you wouldn't want your boss to read.  But we can challenge S&P's motives for looking.

          And one big advantage we gained from negotiating a Code of Ethics is that the company agreed it won't make any changes in the future without first negotiating again with the Guild.  They won't hand out codes on a whim the way they have in the past without the Guild having a say about the rules and regulations they contain.