March 23, 2007

No Deal Reached – At Least Not Yet

Time Inc. nearly stands still despite much Guild movement

After a fourth straight hard day of bargaining, the Guild and the company haven't yet come to an agreement. As the Contract expired at midnight on Thursday, the Guild had received a "last, best and final" offer from the company but had not had time to study it.

There remain large conceptual and financial gaps in the proposals from the two sides, but the company moved a bit during the day and the Guild moved a lot. The Guild feels there is much play left in the two proposals, and we will continue to analyze, respond to and bargain over the company's most recent offer. There are plenty of modifications that both sides can make in future sessions.

If it's broken, find another one

On Thursday there were moments of drama and absurdity, sometimes both at once. The company came back into the conference room with five copies of a new package of proposals - but there are 11 members of the Guild team! Time Inc.'s outside lawyer, Jonathan Sulds, started to discuss the proposals, but the Guild's lead negotiator, New York Local President Barry Lipton, stopped him, saying that the company was showing its disdain for the union because clearly we all needed copies of the 37-page document in order to follow Sulds's presentation.

Sulds insisted on proceeding, but Lipton said the committee (and the Guild supporters in the room) would walk out until the extra copies were made. Sulds, who is representing a part of the self-described "world's leading media company," said the copier (the only one?) had broken. Lipton responded that there were dozens if not hundreds of copiers in the building, and the Guild walked out of the room. Minutes later, the additional copies were made and the two sides were back negotiating.

Showdown at credibility gap

Near the end of the evening, the company showed its hand very clearly - reaching impasse seemed to be Time Inc.'s not-so-hidden goal. Sulds went through a monotonous litany of responding to the Guild's proposals with the words "We continue to reject ..." starting every sentence. He switched to a few "You continue to reject ..." statements and then startled the Guild by saying, "On overtime you have rejected our proposal."

Gasps and shouts of outrage from the Guild followed this willful mischaracterization, because we had accepted their remaining OT proposal in two steps over two days of bargaining! The Guild took the very painful step of allowing the company to pay straight-time OT for hours 35-40 and one-and-a-half times OT pay for hours above 40. However, because of the distinction in the Contract between weekly OT (applicable to only a few job titles in the company) and daily OT (for most of us), the Guild predicated its acceptance upon the company's maintaining the rest of the current language regarding overtime. Otherwise, the Contract provisions would become incoherent and inconsistent, as the Guild has explained to the company over and over, literally for months.

Sulds's description of our action as "rejection" would be ridiculous if the subject weren't so serious.

The 1% solution

Wages are still a huge area of difference. The Guild, building on the just-expired (2004-2007) Contract, wants a guaranteed general-increase raise of 4% per year for three years, with the increases paid on Feb. 1 of 2007 (retroactively), 2008 and 2009. Time Inc. wants all raises to be merit raises (except for an insultingly low signing bonus), with a promise to give each employee only 1% by the end of the three-year Contract! And they want to delay the raises possibly as long as March 15 of the year following the expected raise -- meaning no raise at all until 2008!

A few figures about the company:

*Time Inc. made more than $1 billion in profit last year.

*In the last reported year (2005), the top three Time Warner officers (who included ex-Time Inc. CEO Don Logan) made more than $41 million.

*The total Guild-covered payroll cost for the 386 surviving employees after the recent, savage layoffs is certainly not much more than $25 million.

Somehow, all this doesn't add up. It would be an exaggeration to call what the company is tossing its employees "crumbs." (And after the recent 22 health violations in the company cafeteria, watch out for the real crumbs!)

Sulds claimed that the wage proposal was "based on the Contract," but Lipton bluntly and rightly characterized him as "full of crap." Guild Contracts at Time Inc. had merit pay for a long time, but the GI had always amounted to at least half the pay, whereas Sulds's offer of a 1% guaranteed raise is a tiny fraction of the company claimed 2% merit pool raises, in each of the three years, only to those whom the Publisher unilaterally decides is worthy, and again, the only guaranteed raise is not assured until March 15, 2008!

A very bad deal all around

In the “last, best, and final offer” Time Inc. proposal, retrogressions abound: in pay, in overtime, in severance pay, in notice pay, in sabbaticals, in tuition reimbursement, in Temporary Employee hours, in Project Employee status, in SI holiday schedules, in supper money, in out-of-town meal money - and this list is not complete.

If this is indeed the best the company can do, the Guild would find it extremely difficult to recommend the ratification of this Contract to the membership.

To reassure everyone about the expiration: The terms and conditions of the Contract still apply, with some exceptions, according to the Guild's lawyer, Gary Silverman, who was at the talks yesterday. You, and we, will carry on with both our jobs and our struggle for a fair, just Contract. The Guild has been delighted to see all the friendly faces at the negotiations this week -- be assured that we are with you all the way.

The Guild has called for more negotiations after it finishes studying the Publisher's "last, best and final" offer, but though our preliminary look at it was not encouraging, we will make modifications to our proposals as we continue to meet with the company, and we expect the same of them.

There was some movement in the offer, but Sulds appeared to be too busy running down his list of rejections to mention them. The oddest element was a brand-new proposal, regarding sabbaticals and meal allowances, for the Publisher to "apply to bargaining unit members its policies generally applicable to all employees." The Guild is not quite sure what this means, except that it's not nearly as good as having these items enshrined in the Contract, as they have been.

Join the Guild to strengthen all of us!

To get a better Contract offer, the best thing you can do is to join the Guild or, if you're a member, talk to your co-workers about joining.

The Guild's longtime Membership Chair and recently laid-off Unit Chair, Alex Blanco, is now in the building as a full-time NY Local Guild representative; if you want to join, you can reach him at 522-4187 or 522-4056 (the Guild office phone). Alex is working with a new volunteer recruiter, Bernice Rohret, a longtime Sports Illustrated employee, whom you can contact at 522-4561.

Many of you have already been contacted by Alex and Bernice about joining - now is the time to do it!

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3/23/07