BNA - Guild News

May 23, 2001

Guild and BNA Reach Agreement on Terms of Rockville Transfer

BNA Stops Bonus Awards, Rejects Guild Request to Bargain Terms of Cash Pay Out

Congratulations to BNA's Front Page and Guild Service Awards Winners for Y2K!

Editorial Professionals Statement of Concerns

Guild and BNA Reach Agreement
on Terms of Rockville Transfer

The Guild concluded negotiations last week on behalf of DC home office employees whose work is being transferred to Rockville. The settlement provides a significant lump sum payment to employees agreeing to transfer, commits BNA to allow alternative work schedules wherever possible, and provides an extra opportunity for employees whose extraordinary circumstances preclude transfer to work out special arrangements with the company. Transfers begin on a staggered basis on June 1.

Under the terms of the agreement:

• Every employee who agrees by May 30 to transfer to Rockville will receive a lump sum payment of $1000.00, paid in the first pay period following the employee's report to Rockville. An affected employee in a temporary transfer or on probation whose transfer ends or whose probation fails will receive the payment when they report to Rockville.
• Employees transferring who desire to move closer to their new work place within 12 months following their relocation shall be reimbursed for the reasonable costs of moving their household goods.
• BNA will encourage the use of alternative work plans (AWP). Employees whose applications are denied, or whose approved alternative work plans are cancelled by BNA, have the right to have the denial or cancellation reviewed through a joint meeting of the Guild and BNA representatives (so long as the Guild requests a meeting within 12 working days of the denial or cancellation). The purpose of the meeting will be to jointly identify further AWP options, if any, to be suggested to the employee and manager.
• Employees who can't transfer due to extraordinary circumstances and who thus do not agree by May 30 to report to Rockville will not receive the lump sum payment. The employee is expected to report to Rockville while BNA and the employee attempt to address and resolve issues regarding the transfer. The employee may have Guild representation in this process. This individual bargaining (as provided for under Article XI) is not a guarantee that BNA can, will, or must solve or address all issues, although BNA has stated that it wishes to do everything possible to retain affected employees.
• Employees transferring to Rockville will be entitled to preferential lateral bidding rights for the period of May 1, 2002 through July 1, 2002.
• Three BNA-Guild Labor Management meetings will be held in Rockville in next six months to address working conditions or other issues regarding Rockville which the Guild and BNA wish to raise. Rockville employees and managers will sit on the committee.

BNA plans to post the settlement on the internal website. Questions and requests for representation on any issue under the agreement should be directed to unit chair Reza Namdar at 4105. Special thanks to Joe Kuehne, Vicki Peterson, and Brian Carr for invaluable assistance.

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Rejecting Guild Request to Bargain Terms of Cash Pay Out,
BNA Stops Bonus Awards

BNA notified the Guild on May 3 that it would stop paying lump sum bonuses, since the terms of such bonuses have never been negotiated by the Guild and BNA as required by the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA). The Act requires that employers negotiate wages and terms of employment with the union. Unilateral changes by the employer in the terms of the contract, including compensation and bonuses, constitute an unfair labor practice under law.

The Guild learned that bonus payments of $500 to $1500 were awarded earlier this year to employees for "exceptional service", "long hours", and "exceptional strides in job knowledge". Employees in the steps ands red circled employees received bonuses, although red-circled employees are eligible for the more valuable merit base pay increases of at least one step interval. BNA claimed that bonus payments have been going on since at least 1997, although it has not announced the program to employees, attempted to bargain its terms, or issued standards or guidelines under which employees might bid for bonuses on a level playing field.

BNA, in stopping the payments, stated that it would like to "tackle the issue of how, if at all, managers should recognize short term extraordinary effort."

The Guild supports pay awards that recognize merit. However, pay for performance plans such as this bonus pay scheme in which the employer has sole discretion over who and how much to pay are fraught with potential for favoritism and discrimination. Special pay programs must have standards and guidelines determined by the Guild and BNA jointly, and a fair system for appealing denial. This is entirely achievable. Anything less is unfair to workers, and leaves BNA open to the perception, and its potentially costly consequences, of disparate treatment or discrimination.

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Congratulations to
BNA's Front Page and Guild Service Awards Winners for Y2K!

Distinguished Non-Daily Specialized Technical Reporting
Carol Oberdorfer
"Professors, Journalists, Find Common Ground at AAUP Conference on Intellectual Work"

Honorable Mentions
Gerald B. Silverman (BNA Correspondents)
"GE Conducts Public Relations Campaign Against Dredging of PCBs in Hudson River"

Margaret H. Miller
"Using Computer Software to Negotiate Contracts Online"

Distinguished Unit Communications
Kyttie Ayiku
Kathy Carroll
"Behind the Dome"

WBNG Unit Officer of the Year
Reza Namdar
Chair, BNA

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EDITORIAL PROFESSIONALS STATEMENT OF CONCERNS

BNA editorial professionals are concerned about some major changes in the work and publications organization, management structure, and corporate priorities of BNA. These changes have begun to demoralize staff and erode the high quality of BNA publications, thereby endangering the future viability of the corporation in which we all have a direct and vital interest.

Inordinate attention to the short-run bottom line of publications is endangering the company's long-range viability. The short-run bottom line is apparently served by allowing extensive attrition - failing to replace publication staff for months, if ever--and beginning new publications with no additional staff, on the assumption that staff is as interchangeable and infinitely malleable as technology.

1. Loyal employees have been called upon to do much more with less, and at the same time to develop an adequate level of expertise in a variety of subject areas. They are then expected to write for an increasing number of publications, each of which has different publication or writing styles and caters to different reading audiences. It is just not true that the differences between writing for a weekly and writing for a daily is only a few extra keystrokes and a minor change or two. Nor is it true that only a few moments of attention is needed to alter a story written for one publication to suit it for another.

2. The inevitable stress and time demands of increased production responsibilities, and of the need to transform perspectives and style inevitably diminish product quality.

3. Managing editors have also been subjected to impossible demands. As professionals-lawyers, reporters, editorial assistants- we do not want to be compelled to produce work of which we cannot be proud. And yet, some of us are ashamed to put our names on BNA publications to which we contribute. As product quality diminishes, so does our own self-esteem.

4. Instead of ameliorating these problems, by maintaining adequate staffing levels and allowing editorial employees to contribute more actively to product quality, BNA adds increasing layers of management. Managers are directed to fall lockstep into the accelerating tendency to elevate concern with short-term gains in profitability. By failing to rely on our expertise, and to use our knowledge, experiences, and insights to discern what our subscribers want most so we, the content providers, can continue to produce the quality publications that enable us to prosper in the increasingly competitive publishing industry, we are demeaned as professionals, and BNA suffers doubly.

5. We believe that technology is a tool, but it is not an end-in-itself. It is not the substance of what has allowed BNA to survive and excel in the industry. Yet PS2000 and other technological changes have been used to homogenize editorial staff as it does publishing formats. This is unrealistic, inhumane, and dangerous. Without substantial participation by editorial staff-specifically line staff -- in the implementation of new technologies, BNA will continue to elevate form over substance. Where content and quality has been our hallmark, their subordination to technological uniformity is a serious danger to BNA, to our jobs and to our future as well.

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