    
|
|
Washington Post - Guild NewsApril 22, 2002
Bargaining IntensifiesThis week’s bargaining between Post management and the Guild brought many points of contention into better focus.That’s a good thing because, frankly, the clearer things get, the better we look. Our proposals are few in number and almost embarrassingly modest, but together they would stand to improve our lives. By contrast, The Post has offered proposals that would leave employees worse off, both economically and with regard to workplace rights. Here are some details: to help you get a sense of what’s going on and where things stand. Wages: Although both sides have only begun to focus on this core economic issue, we have shared with management some statistics for them to mull as they rethink their initial wage offer of No Raise in the first year and raises after that averaging just over 1 percent per year over the life of the contract. Our view on wages is simple: Employees at a strong company like The Washington Post should be better off at the end of their contract than they were at its beginning. But that has not been happening. Bargaining committee member and night foreign copy editor Keith Sinzinger has tracked the numbers since November 1997, when we received the last pay raise of the previous contract. In line with the terms of our current contract, employees earning top contractual minimums at The Post have received salary increases totalling 5.1 percent in the four-and-a-half years since then. For employees earning more than those minimums, as many of us are, the percentage was even lower. Yet according to the Consumer Price Index, inflation in the Washington region has grown more than 10 percent during that same period. And some key sectors of the economy have seen inflation levels much higher than that. For example, the median price for a single-family house or townhouse in the Washington region went up 10.3 percent last year alone. In fact, Washington D.C. had the nation’s highest home appreciation rate last year: 15 percent. (Maryland and Virginia ranked #10 and #12, with rates of 8.8 percent and 8.5 percent respectively.) People should not have to lose economic ground for the privilege of working at The Post. The Guild on Wednesday proposed wage increases averaging 4 percent annually for the next three years (federal employees got a 4.77 percent increase this year). The Guild also made it clear that although The Post has offered only a lump sum payment ($1,000 for full-timers) in the contract’s first year, employees deserve and expect a real wage increase in all three years of the contract. “A lump sum does nothing to increase an employee’s salary,” said Guild chief negotiator Rick Ehrmann. Merit Pay: With recent contractual raises falling short of inflation, merit pay has become one of the few hopes a worker has of actually getting ahead. Given that economic importance,we think the program should have clear standards. The Post may not owe every employee a merit raise, but it does owe every employee a straightforward description of what it might take to get one — and enough information about the program to assure workers that it’s being administered fairly. Yet the Post refuses to offer any evidence that merit pay is equally within reach to all who excel, even as it touts the availability of merit pay as a justification for keeping contractual wages down. “There are not written standards and we have no interest in changing how the program works,” said Patricia Dunn, The Post’s vice president for labor relations. Differentials: It’s time for some increases in these “per shift” payments for evening-and night-shift employees. They last went up in November 1983, to $4 per evening shift (up from $3) and to $5 (up from $4) for the late night shift. “As we know,” Sinzinger told Dunn on Wednesday, “prices have gone up since 1983.” The cost of a taxi ride home has gone up, he said, as has the cost of parking. So has the cost of food, especially since The Post decided to close the cafeteria at 6 p.m. –- a decision the company has acknowledged saved it a half-million dollars in the second half of last year alone. We suggested this week that it would be appropriate to share some of those saved dollars with the workers who every evening are economically and practically inconvenienced by the change (we have proposed differentials of $8 and $10 per shift). But that suggestion, Dunn said, showed a “problematic” lack of understanding. “The fact that we saved money is a good thing,” she said. Web site: Discussions are ongoing about writing for washingtonpost.com. It’s a complicated issue. We all want the Web site to succeed, and its current level of success is testimony to the cooperation of Guild-covered writers, editors, photographers and others. But Web responsibilities are having an increasingly big impact on many of us. We think it’s only fair and prudent to start a formal dialogue about this work and how it might be rewarded in the future. We believe this dialogue should start when the contract is renewed. Meanwhile it’s very important to have an assurance that Web work will remain voluntary at The Post. Dunn reiterated that newsroom managers are opposed to making any promises that Web work will always remain voluntary. Free Metrochek: Bargaining committee member Ann Gerhart provided Post management with data from Metro showing what a bargain it is to provide this environmentally sound benefit to employees. The Guild has proposed that The Post offer employees a direct Metro benefit of up to $100 per month, as more than 2200 other area employers do. Because of tax benefits designed to encourage this good corporate citizenship, $100 in Metro tickets would cost The Post just over $50, according to a Metro estimate. But Dunn was not sold. “It is not cost neutral,”she said. Personal Days: The most cost-effective way for the company to give employees some additional paid time off is in the form of personal days, which in many cases (especially in the newsroom) will cost The Post nothing as co-workers cover for one another. Our current proposal calls for one personal day (which must be used within a year or lost) for employees with three years of service, two days for those with five years, and three days for those with seven or more years. “It ’s a problematic proposal for us,” Dunn said. “We want to focus on reducing costs, not adding costs with new leave and increased benefits.” Four-day workweek: Our current contract gives us the right to work four-day weeks with longer days when possible. Now management wants to change that language in a way that would give the company the right to impose that schedule on people who do not want it –- people, for example, who attend evening classes and who appreciate a standard work day. For some employees, Ehrmann said, a ten-hour day would be “pushing beyond the boundaries of picking up kids from daycare.” Dunn said she’d prefer not to impose such schedules on employees. However, she said, “We ought to be able to have the right to do that.” We disagree. As we ’ve mentioned, The Post has several proposals on the table that would severely weaken the Guild ’s ability to represent Post employees. We think management should be ashamed of these unseemly efforts. One proposal would prevent us from handing you bulletins like this one. “That would severely restrict our ability to communicate with our members,” Ehrmann told Dunn. “In general, the system being used works. It is not disruptive and we feel it’s important not to go backwards in our ability to communicate with members.” Management is also seeking contractual language that would preclude the Guild from using group e-mail to communicate with employees. The Guild has explained that we recognize the limits of what we can do with e-mail. We have been battling this out with The Post for many months now before the National Labor Relations Board. That board has laid out limits and we are adhering to those limits. But there is ground that has not been addressed in those decisions and, more important, labor boards often amend their views as technology, society and political administrations change. Does The Post really think we would add language to our contract that would lock in restrictions that we’re already complying with and which future labor boards or courts may someday determine are inappropriate? “We won’t do that,” Ehrmann told The Post. “That ’s regrettable,” said Dunn. “Those are very strong words.” You bet. The Post had a slogan for a while: “If you don ’t get it, you don ’t get it.” Now it’s time for The Post to get it, and for us to get what we deserve. Most of us throw a huge amount of our lives into this place. It’s no small thing. We make The Washington Post. And once every three years or so The Washington Post gets to tell us just how much it appreciates our efforts. We’re listening. —Rick Weiss, on behalf of your Guild Bargaining Committee
If you ’re not a Guild member, please join today. |
|
|
Washington-Baltimore
Newspaper Guild, Local 32035 TNG-CWA, AFL-CIO/ 1100 15th St., NW,
Suite 350 Washington, DC 20005/ 202-785-3650 /Fax: 202-7859 Copyright © 2002 Washington-Baltimore Newspaper Guild |
