Just last month, the Guild welcomed back LIFE in On Time #7. At approximately the same time, a routine information request consistent with the Guild contract’s Article V, Information to the Guild, went out to Tina Kremenezky, Director of Employment Law for Time Inc., from the Newspaper Guild. It is the Guild’s position, and it’s clearly stated in the contract (Article III, Sec. 1) between Time Inc. and the Guild, that the editorial employees of LIFE magazine are represented by the Guild. But instead of the information that the Guild had expected, the response from the company was astonishing, yet not out of sync with Time Inc.’s recent anti-employee behavior.
In her response to the Guild’s information request, Ms. Kremenezky wrote, “The ‘Life’ Magazine to which your letter and the contract refers shut down in 2000; there are no individuals employed at the Company working for that publication….”
As the Guild’s Grievance Committee told Ms. Kremenezky during a meeting following shortly after her response was received by the Guild, neither the contract nor the Guild differentiates the formats in which Life has existed or now exists. LIFE is LIFE, and when LIFE came back to life before, in the late 1970s, it was immediately recognized by the company as Guild-covered and thereby rejoined the family of Time Inc. Guild magazines.
In
order to represent the employees at LIFE so they may be fully covered by the
contract, the Guild has filed for arbitration in this matter and is optimistic
that in the end, the employees of LIFE will once again be fully recognized by
the company as a Guild-covered staff.
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11/29/04