The 'Star' system is a way to devalue and control us

By Peter Szekely
New York Guild Secretary-Treasurer

Consider the plight of Thomson Reuters managers. For months, they've been telling us how they'd like to create a meritocracy, "an environment that rewards you for your work," or more simply, a "Star Culture." But we in the Guild won't let them. Boo hiss.

The only problem with what they've been telling us is - to loosely paraphrase a congressman from South Carolina - it just ain't so. Can your bosses reward your good work? Yes they can. Is this a place where stars shine brightly? You betcha. Managers can reward Guild-covered employees, and they do.

WHAT THEY WANT
Second of a series

First, let's look at the facts. Is there anything in our contract that prevents or discourages management from rewarding employees with more than the required minimum? No. On the contrary, it encourages management to give people more money: "The minimum wage rates established in this Agreement are minimums only. Reuters will continue its practice of acknowledging individual merit by granting increases above the minimums." (Article VIII, Section 2)

And then there are bonuses, where your bosses also have a free hand to acknowledge your good work with extra cash (Side Letter #3). In fact, the contract requires that at least half of all Guild-represented employees get bonuses every year, though it leaves the amount up to management. Typically, Editorial bonuses are skimpy. But bonuses in Technical Operations and other non-Editorial areas are often a few thousand dollars each.

Many members already earn above scale
We examined data we got from the company last month and found that 30 percent of all full-time, regular employees - nearly one out of three - are making more than the contract minimums. To be fair, about one-third of the folks with above-scale pay have it solely because of a 1995 agreement in which the Guild traded a 3.7 percent increase in our workweek for a 3.7 percent increase in pay for everyone on the payroll at the time.

But even if we exclude them, we're left with about 20 percent of full-time, regular Guild-covered employees - one out of every five - who make more than the contract requires, for no reason other than their bosses agreed to give it to them. Not only does the contract allow managers to pay us above the required minimum, but the record shows that that's exactly what they do. Face it, if you're not already a management-designated "star" making more than what's required, it's simply because your boss doesn't want you to be - or maybe you haven't asked.

So, if we already have a workplace in which management can and does reward the  performance it likes, why do they want to overhaul our pay structure by cutting starting pay and doing away with experience-based increases, except those they would award solely at their own discretion? There are two reasons: devaluation and control.

Let's start with devaluation. Management is on a mission to devalue our jobs. They would probably call it cost-cutting. Before the merger, Thomson's benefits were generally inferior to those of Reuters. So, management chose to push Reuters nonunion employees down, instead of lifting Thomson employees up. Never mind that company CEO Tom Glocer and Devin Wenig, who sits on top of our division of the company, both came from Reuters. Cutting costs at the expense of employees is what most U.S. corporate executives do when they can get away with it. Ours are no different.

Taking aim at our floor of decency
Right now, our pay structure provides what I call a floor of decency. It gives you and your families a decent living for the work you do. Management controls what's above the floor; they can pay you more, as we've seen. Below the floor, our scales have "steps" that lift the pay of everyone who is not already at the top of their respective pay groups. These yearly "step" increases recognize experience in the job and are over and above our annual wage increases. The salary difference within each group, from start to top, can be considerable, ranging as high as $17,300 a year in Group 10J.

Management wants to drop our floor below the current "start" level for newly hired Editorial employees. If we let them succeed, they will have devalued our jobs. At first, the newer underpaid employees would be a second-class minority, resentful of their higher-paid colleagues and of the Guild for accepting the pay disparity. But in a few short years, they would become the majority and the rest of us - everyone on the payroll today - would become legacy workers, who would be seen as overpaid, undeserving and a burdensome cost that management will try to unload anyway it can.

And then there is control. The only way management's proposal would allow a lower-tier employee to approach our current floor of decency would with a manager's okay. Managers would have complete control. If the past is any guide, management will keep 80 percent of lower-tier employees where they are. Only one in five would become "stars" who would get to stand on the same floor of decency as the rest of us.  

Subjective assessments would loom larger
Management says its pay decisions would be based on performance appraisals, a process that reduces the vast range of our professional lives to a to-do list and has a seriously flawed ratings structure that can be used against us. But even if we fix all the problems of appraisals, as we're trying to do, much of what's in them always will be subjective. Let's face it, there's a certain amount of subjectivity that goes into assessing all of our jobs. It's why we laugh loudly at our bosses' dumb jokes. The greater the degree to which our jobs can be subjectively assessed, the louder we laugh.

Over many years of bargaining, what's evolved in our workplace is a careful balance between what we have a right to expect and what management can grant. Those good enough to work for our company can count on decent pay and the value of their on-the-job experience lifting them to the floor of decency. Our managers' subjective assessments determine whether we rise above the floor or get the promotions or transfers we want. Notwithstanding the reality that everyone always wants more, the system works well.

What management is proposing would upset that careful balance. Employees and their families would have to depend on their bosses' subjective assessments just to make a decent living. If we let them have their way, a lot of employees will be doing a lot of laughing at dumb jokes. And it won't be funny. 

(Before taking a leave of absence from Reuters in 2007 to become secretary-treasurer of the New York Guild, Peter Szekely was Reuters Guild unit chair and a correspondent in the Washington Bureau, where he worked for 24 years.)