January 5, 2006

MERRY CHRISTMAS FROM TIME WARNER

(AND A HAPPY NEW YEAR?)

 

Just before Christmas, Santa left coal in the stockings of 105 Time Warner employees at the management level. And just before the ball at Times Square began its descent into 2006, came word via the New York Post that another 400 Time Warner employees, 3% of the company's workforce, will slide into the ranks of the unemployed shortly after the New Year.

 

Corporate is under pressure, according to the Post, to cut spending by $100 million. And once again, a significant portion of those cuts, it seems, must come from us - you know, those people Dick Parsons thanked in his year-end memo "for staying focused on business and turning in such terrific performances this year," with whose "continued hard work we can build on this company's successes and deliver even greater value to our shareholders."

With all due respect, the fact that this company's stock has produced very little value for shareholders in the past five years is not something that job cuts are likely to correct. Were it so, one might expect that the many jobs eliminated since the merger would have moved the stock price above $20 sometime in the past three years.

 

Downsizing is, of course, any company's right. No union can prevent it. And Time Warner is not a latter-day Scrooge & Marley - at least no more than any other corporation.  But our company doesn't operate in isolation. As our CNN colleague, Lou Dobbs, chronicles nightly, globalization is doing exactly what many predicted when GATT and NAFTA were being touted from Washington to Wall Street as the new lynchpin of economic growth: It has cost American jobs and resulted in a worldwide effort to equalize standards of living - by lowering the salaries and benefits of workers in the Western democracies to the level of the developing nations.

 

We have seen more than the elimination of hours and jobs. Consider:

 

• Our medical and especially dental benefits have eroded; our premiums have doubled, and co-pays for medical care and prescription drugs are higher.

• Profit-sharing, once as high as 11% of salary, was eliminated in favor of stock options, and after the federal government eliminated the corporate tax advantage of stock options, options were eliminated in favor of . . . nothing.

• Raises have shrunk to only a 2% guarantee.

Add it all up, and it amounts to a significant decline in living standards.

 

WHAT CAN WE DO ABOUT IT? 

 

We can wait for the axe to fall and hope it misses us. Or we can push back. Joining the Newspaper Guild is one of the few push-back tools we have. You won't have to stand on your desk with a sign like Norma Rae, or march on the White House or even on the Time Warner Center. Joining the Guild simply means standing up to be counted, letting management know that we are serious about preserving our workplace quality-of-life and our level of compensation - and that there are a lot of us. It is in the time-honored American tradition of labor-management relations, and now, more than ever, we have every reason to participate.

 

WHAT DOES THE GUILD DO FOR ME? AND WHY DOESN'T IT DO MORE?

 

Our raises, vacations, holidays, benefits, night-work bonus, supper money, sabbaticals -and generous severance packages - only exist because they have, over the years, been negotiated into the Guild contract. We get them whether or not we are Guild members. The Guild defends employees in disputes with management; reviews packages to make sure they include everything to which an employee is entitled; fights arbitrary reductions in compensation (the elimination of profit sharing is still in arbitration). Although the Guild cannot prevent downsizing, it can fight to ensure that it is done fairly and with respect for our contract. It can resist further erosion of our compensation and benefits, and it can even negotiate improvements.

 

But the Guild is only as strong as its committed membership. Management knows this. Why else is it trying to redefine jobs and lines of supervision in an attempt to place more employees outside the bargaining unit? Job cuts, retirement and changes in the workforce have led to a decline in membership. To make the Guild a more effective tool in negotiating and defending employee rights, we need a larger membership. Don't stay on the outside looking in.  By remaining outside the Guild, you lose the opportunity to play a role in making Time Inc. a better place to work. If you are not a member, please sign up today.

 

WHAT WILL IT COST ME TO JOIN?

 

Union dues, which are deducted from your regular salary, are 1.3846%. It's less than the cost of a dinner out. Those of us who have seen the work the Guild does, often unnoticed, consider it a worthwhile investment. 

 

AND ...

 

As for that $100 million of cost-cutting pressure, here's a modest proposal from an employee shareholder who hopes the post-merger stock-options grant will approach the strike price of around $46 sometime before the next millennium: Cancel last summer's $60 million purchase of El Grupo, the Mexican business magazine publications. And maybe extend the ban on company-paid holiday parties to include the December corporate executive bash at Mandarin Oriental Hotel in the Time Warner Center, one of the most expensive venues in Manhattan. 

 

For membership information, contact Membership Chairperson Alex Blanco at 212-522-4187.

 

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01/05/06