Post to Guild: Thanks for the Work! But Sorry, We Can't Pay You.

Washington Post management has a new plan it wants to implement:
Work extra days on demand, but forget about the old system of getting paid comp time for all your labor.

As most Guild-covered employees already know, the long-standing practice at The Post is for many employees to click on “Worked on Day Off” on their time cards whenever they work a sixth or seventh day in a week. That time is registered as comp time. It’s an I.O.U. from The Post, giving you the right to take a comp day off at a time convenient to you and your supervisor. And if, by the end of the accounting quarter, you have not taken that time off, The Post pays it out in your next paycheck. After all, you worked. It applies, in a similar way, to employees who work on holidays.

Comp time is what most Newsroom employees get instead of overtime, a result of past management demands. Now, in negotiations for a new labor contract, Post managers are claiming that the era of paying for all comp time must end. Their plan is to cap the number of comp days they’ll pay for at ten. Anyone who works more than ten extra days in a year would no longer have the option of getting paid. They’d have to find time off instead. And if no suitable time can be found, you’re out of luck. You worked for free!

Moreover, under management’s proposal, the soonest you’d be able to get paid for comp time would be more than six months after you worked the extra time. In some cases the wait would be more than a year. And again, if you work more than ten extra days, you can wait forever. You won’t get paid.

The Guild has offered a counter-proposal that we think is a fair compromise. Fine, we said: We’ll accept delayed payments of six months to a year, to give employees more chance to take the time off and to reduce, perhaps, the financial burden on The Post of paying out for comp time. But if employees at some point during that year decide they want to get paid for the work they’ve done, they could request it and it would show up in their paychecks at the end of the quarter.

Post management rejected our compromise.

Employees don’t generally have much choice when a supervisor tells them they are needed to work extra days. The Post should not have a choice as to whether or not to pay for that work. That’s how it’s been. That’s how it ought to stay.

Already Post management has curbed overtime for people who work it, unlike many other papers. Now Post management wants to curb comp time pay -- that is, straight time for sixth and seventh days -- for those who have earned it.

Management says its proposal will affect relatively few people, and it should not be hard for people to find time to take off. Do you agree? Send e-mail to tharris@wbng.org.

IMPORTANT INFORMATION REQUEST

The Guild needs to know how many 20-year employees have balances of less than 750 hours in their sick leave accounts. Post management is seeking to reduce the sick leave benefit for 20-year veterans with low sick leave balances and claims that only six employees would be affected. We already know of 11 and we suspect there are more. If you are a 20-year veteran with fewer than 750 hours of sick leave (check it in “TAS Leave”) please e-mail the Guild immediately. tharris@wbng.org