January 31, 2006
The Guild Is Here to Give Advice
Management has announced that it is eliminating up to 36 Guild-covered jobs in the various divisions of Time Inc., and offering seven voluntary packages at Sports Illustrated, where, the Guild was told, there will not be involuntary layoffs. The announcement is very distressing, and it raises a lot of questions. The Newspaper Guild wants to make sure that everyone involved has all the pertinent information and knows how all the contractual rules apply.
The union has asked management if staffers who are interested in leaving with a package, but who are not in a job category where eliminations have been announced, may also ask for a package. Management said it would entertain such requests. If you are not in a targeted area, you should contact a Guild representative and together let your HR representative know of your interest. Management told the Guild that if the staffers ask that their names be kept confidential, that request will be honored, and the managers will not be told who they are.
Layoffs are a complex contractual matter, not always easy to understand and too complicated to be covered in any one communication. In addition to management and HR, the Guild is here to talk over your questions with you and discuss your concerns, and to represent you in discussions with management if you choose.
We welcome any questions. Don’t hesitate to call our Unit Chair, Alex Blanco, x 4187, or Grievance Chair, Edith Fried, x 3867.
The Guild always urges you to try to hold on to your job if you like it, or to find a similar job in Time Inc. if you can. Today, at the very “lean” Time Inc., finding a similar job elsewhere in the company may be very difficult, but in some cases it could work out.
For some staffers, the buyout packages do work. Make your decision carefully, after studying the information below.
The provisions and precedents summarized below have been won by the Guild over decades of hard bargaining with Time Inc. management. Some of these practices may sometimes be followed on the business side of this company - perhaps in the old days out of corporate generosity, perhaps, now, to keep those employees from organizing into a union. But these protections are guaranteed only to employees covered by the Guild contract. Most of them are listed in Article XXI.
A promise: Management will "make every reasonable effort to relocate in comparable work" the employees involved in a job cut. "Such employees shall be given first consideration for jobs with the company."
2. Training for a new job: If you are "deemed to have the ability for an available job at Time Inc. but lack the training, the company will train you to meet the requirements of the job."
3. Mutual trial: If you are rehired into another Time Inc. job, you get a 3-month mutual trial. If you decide the job is unsuitable, you can leave at any time and resume getting your separation package. (This provision protects your package while you explore the job opportunity.) Management must decide at the end of the three months whether or not to make you permanent or not, but rarely does anyone fail such a trial. After three months, when you become permanent in the new job, any unused portion of your package evaporates, but you would be eligible for a new package if there is ever a staff cut in your new department.
4. Severance-and-notice-pay package: If you volunteer or if you are terminated involuntarily, you get 3 weeks of severance pay for every year of service (rounded to the nearest 6 months) up to $25,000, and 2 weeks per year up to $30,000, but then only one week for each remaining year of service not used in reaching the $30,000 breakpoint. Notice pay is paid in addition to severance. It ranges from 4 weeks for less than one year of service up to 24 weeks for more than 30 years of service. The Guild has a form you can use to work out an estimate of your package. In addition, management has agreed to provide package information if you ask, whether you want to leave or not.
5. Volunteers for buyouts: You can volunteer for the severance-and-notice-pay package as a buyout, during a period before any terminations are made in a staff cut. If you volunteer for a buyout, you get the same package and retraining allowance that you would if terminated, and you can usually get unemployment benefits as well.
6. Volunteer means volunteer: You can NOT be coerced to "volunteer" against your wishes. Your manager cannot take the initiative and approach you individually, suggesting that you should take a buyout package; that would constitute illegal direct dealing by the company. Besides U.S. labor law, the Guild has a collective bargaining agreement protecting you from such intimidating offers. And it could constitute illegal age discrimination if a manager ever suggested that it’s time for you to retire.
7. How to volunteer: If you are interested in taking a buyout package, consider the matter carefully, and talk to the Guild about it first. Then you must notify management that you want a package. Work with the Guild so you won’t have to fly solo.
8. Volunteers don’t get:
a. Rehire rights: If you are terminated and choose to take your package while remaining on payroll, and subsequently one of the same jobs or a comparable job within the division opens up within 39 weeks, you have the right to be rehired for that opening, and you have the right to "first consideration" for other jobs in the company. Volunteers don’t.
b. Offsite training: If you are terminated due to
automation, you can get up to four weeks of outside training paid for by the
company if the training will qualify you for an available Time Inc. job.
Volunteers don’t.
c. Job lists: If you are terminated, you receive the job listings by mail to keep you up on available openings, also available through links on Time Traveler, so you can get the first consideration. Volunteers don’t.
9. Notice to the Guild: The advance notice given to the union and to the staff about a job elimination is required by the contract; it is different from and in addition to your notice pay. (You must be notified of job cuts in your area, even if you are on vacation; if you can’t be found quickly, your time period to consider volunteering may be extended.)
10. Volunteer periods: Management must give at least 2 weeks for employees in the affected departments to volunteer before anyone can be terminated. Another 2-week period allows for "cross-divisional" volunteers from other magazines or divisions to come forward.
11. Too many volunteers: Management must accept 90% of the volunteers from the area being cut back, and "make every reasonable effort" to take all volunteers up to the number of jobs being cut. In the past, when there were more volunteers than jobs being eliminated, management often accepted all of them and hired new employees, but it is not required to do so.
12. Too few volunteers: [Rights in this area have been improved via negotiations since 1996; the following is excerpted from the present Guild contract. “In the event of any such reduction in force, any involuntary reductions shall be made in inverse order of length of service, except where an Employee is involved in a special function or except where the abilities, skills, or performance of the junior Employee are superior to the more senior Employee as determined at the discretion of the Publisher, such discretion not to be abused."—Article XXI, Section 7(b) of the Guild contract. The Guild has the right to challenge any termination that is out of seniority if there is a question of abuse of management discretion.
13. Cross-divisional volunteers: If you are outside of the affected area, you may volunteer for a buyout if there are not enough volunteers within the division, and if your departure will provide a job for someone whose job is being eliminated.
a. Job-for-package swap: If you volunteer, one of
the affected employees must be willing and able to take your job, and your
manager must be willing to accept that employee as your substitute. A
manager cannot arbitrarily veto the swap, because management is obliged by
the contract to "make every reasonable effort" to take all volunteers up to
the number of jobs being cut.
b. Automatically eligible: If your job is in Group
1 to 9, you are automatically eligible to be a cross-divisional volunteer
for one of the jobs in the same group as yours that is being eliminated. The
jobs in Groups 1 to 9 include photo lab technicians, imaging coordinators,
administrative assistants, copy editors, page coders, picture researchers,
and others. (Note that the contract job titles are not always the same as
the masthead titles.)
c. Case-by-case consideration: Management may extend this "cross-divisional volunteer" provision on a case-by-case basis to the jobs above Group 9, such as imaging specialist, reporter, negative reader, research librarian, staff correspondent, and designer. But management is not obliged to do so, and it can refuse requests from volunteers not guaranteed eligibility by the contract. [Management has agreed to extend the “cross-divisional volunteer” provision in this case.]
14. Extra 13 weeks: If you have 20 years of service and are within 5 years of qualifying for any of the company’s retirement plans, you get an extra 13 weeks added to your package. The 13 weeks may be taken as 13 extra weeks on payroll.
15. Part-timers: Your package is calculated on your average workweek over the last 26 weeks (similar to the calculation of part-timers’ vacation pay), not from your guarantee.
16. Night-work bonus: Your night-work bonus is included in figuring the severance part of the package, but not in the notice-pay part.
17. Package on payroll: You can take your notice and severance on payroll for up to 26 weeks (if your package is that big) with full medical benefits, or for 39 weeks if you get the extra 13 weeks. Any unused portion of your package is paid as a lump sum (along with any unused vacation) when your time on payroll comes to an end.
18. Package as a lump sum: You can take a lump-sum package at any time if you decide you don’t want to continue on payroll. You give up your rehire rights when you take a lump sum, and your benefits stop.
19. Retraining allowance: You can be reimbursed for training, classes, or job placement expenses, up to an additional 15% of your severance and notice pay, whether you take your package on payroll or as a lump sum. You have up to 2 years to collect. The allowance is customarily given after a course is completed, not before.
20. "Pushing the package": If you take your package on payroll, you can also do temporary, supplementary, or project work at Time Inc. to extend your time on payroll for up to 26 additional weeks, or for up to 52 weeks for employees with more than 5 years of service, or even longer on a case-by-case basis.
21. Your new job and your severance: If you take your package as a lump sum and are later rehired, and if the number of weeks in the package exceeds the number of weeks in the gap in employment, management will expect you to repay those additional weeks. When you take your package while on payroll, this is not an issue, since you are simply transferred from the severance payroll back to the active-employee payroll. In effect, you get the same treatment either way.
22. Bridging to a new job: If you take your package while on payroll and then get another position in Time Inc., you are bridged in length of service, as though you never left, e.g., for vacation eligibility, the various benefits plans, etc.
23. Offsite training: In an automation cutback, you can get up to 4 weeks of offsite- training, if it will enable you to take an available job. For example, you could take courses in color theory and page geometry in order to work as an imaging specialist.
24. Tuition refund: If you started taking courses under the education benefit before the job elimination took effect, you still get the regular tuition reimbursement if you are still on payroll or collecting severance, when the courses are completed.
25. Medical coverage ends: Your medical benefits extend only to the end of the month you go off payroll, whether you take your package while on payroll or as a lump sum.
26. Extending your coverage: If you take your package on payroll, you continue to be covered by the medical plans. When the package runs out, you can buy coverage under the Time Inc. plan until you get medical insurance from a new employer. The company is required by federal law (called COBRA) to sell you the same coverage at the same group rate price (plus as much as a 2% administrative charge) for 18 months, or even longer in certain special cases. After that, a rollover plan with limited coverage is available.
27. Lump sum for outside job: If you start taking your package on payroll, you must take a lump sum for the remainder of your package when you get a permanent position outside the company, that ends your medical coverage. (The presumption is that you will get medical benefits from the new job and won’t need them from Time Inc.) This rule does not apply to temporary, freelance, or provisional employment.
28. 401(k) and pension: If you take your package on payroll, all your time on payroll counts toward your retirement credit and contributions continue to be made to your 401(k) plan.
29. Stay on for profit sharing: If you are still on payroll by the end of 2006, either by taking your package while on payroll or by extending the package with temporary work, and the Guild is successful in returning Profit Sharing to our compensation mix, you will be eligible for Profit Sharing for 2006. If you leave the payroll before the end of 2006, you will definitely receive no Profit Sharing.
30. Unemployment benefits: You may be able to take your severance while on payroll and collect unemployment benefits at the same time, in states that include N.Y., N.J., and Md. You answer "Yes" to severance and tell your unemployment office that your job was eliminated. In Va. and D.C., severance is considered wages, so you will have to wait until the end of your package while on payroll to collect.
31. Your office and voice mail: In some cases, you can continue to use an office. More often, you can retain use of voice mail if you have your own individual extension. If you need this aid during job-hunting, contact the Guild. We ’ll try to work it out with management on a case-by-case basis.
32. Sabbaticals: If you get a package, as a volunteer or from a
termination, and you were eligible for a sabbatical leave (which requires 15
years of service), you can NOT take the leave unless:-
a. you had asked for it before the staff cut
announcement (such requests may be honored or negotiated),
b. you take retirement or early retirement in conjunction
with your package.
33. Retirement: You can take a package and then retire, or take early retirement, if you qualify. If you want to know your retirement-income estimates, look into it right away. You can find out what your pension would be by calling the Time Warner Benefits Center at 877-553-1241, workdays before 7 pm, or you can use the online pension calculator, available through links on Time Traveler. People with difficult or unusual situations should call the Benefits Help Desk here. You can take the package as a lump sum and start getting your pension immediately, or you can take your package while on payroll to increase your pension by adding payroll that period to your length of service.
33. Early retirement: If, at the start of 2000, you had accumulated service credit of 10 years or more and if this credit, added to your age, totaled 65 or more, you are “grandfathered” for coverage under the old early retirement plan. Thus, you would be automatically eligible for early retirement, if you have 20 years of service and are 55 to 59, or have 10 years of service by age 60. If you qualify, you can take your package as a lump sum and begin early retirement, or stay on the payroll and segue from payroll to early retirement. Early retirement continues your regular medical coverage until age 65, when it becomes a United Healthcare plan that is secondary to Medicare. With early retirement, from age 55 to 60, you get at least 35% of your final salary. (Note that your co-payment of the insurance premium is more expensive as an early retiree than as an active employee.)
If you are not completely grandfathered for the old early retirement plan, you may still be eligible for a partial plan, and you should contact the Benefits Help Desk or Kendall-Leigh O’Neill (ext. 1113) to learn the details. You can take regular early retirement, with the full pension, at 62 if you have at least 10 years of service, if you have remained on payroll until you are at least 55.
34. Help in bridging: If you are not quite eligible for early retirement, but are close, talk to the Guild. We often can work out special arrangements with management to bridge long-time staffers so that they can qualify for retirement, using their package while on payroll, temp work, leaves, etc.
35. Retirees’ medical: To get the company-paid retiree medical coverage, you must retire directly from payroll, that is, apply for retirement so that there is no time gap between payroll and retirement. The longer your length of service, the greater the company’s share of the premiums, and the less you have to pay.
36. Future coverage: Do not go off payroll before dealing with your retirement entitlements. In the past, this company has made cuts in the retirement plan, but only prospectively, affecting future retirees, not retroactively, affecting those already retired. So, going on precedent, you probably will keep the medical benefits and pension you retire with for the rest of your life.
37. Pension payouts: Your pension can be taken as a lump sum, as a payout over a certain guaranteed period, or for the rest of your life. There is also a survivor’s benefit provision. The window for your choice opens when you put in for the pension.
38. Figuring a lump sum: The lump sum (or the present value of your pension) is calculated by an actuary, using the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corp. interest rate. When interest rates are low, the lump sum is high; if inflation increases and interest rates go up, it is smaller. If you choose, you can take your lump sum and invest it elsewhere, typically in an IRA. Talking to a financial consultant may be helpful.
39. Vested in staff cut: If you get a package, you are automatically vested in the pension plan. If you have a short length of service, you can take a lump sum of up to $3,500 immediately, and either pay taxes on it or roll it over into an IRA or other tax-sheltered plan.
40. Retirement savings: If you are too young to retire, you get control over your funds when you leave payroll. You can leave them in your 401(k) and handle them as you did before, or you can roll them over directly into a qualified IRA. Do not have Fidelity issue a check to you. You can easily get entangled in red tape and end up paying penalties and income taxes on that money, even if you later deposit it into an IRA. Make a direct transfer to a new tax-sheltered account that has a qualified money manager.
41. Taxes and penalties: Your retirement savings are not taxed until you take the money out of the tax-sheltered funds. If you are younger than 59 1/2 when you take a withdrawal, you pay a heavy penalty right off the top, and then income taxes, except in certain hardship conditions.
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01.31.06