Pay for Performance "bargaining" abruptly ends

"We have fulfilled our legal obligation."

With those words, Tribune legal counsel Tim Fair ended almost four weeks of "bargaining" on The Sun's proposed performance evaluation system. Fair and the management negotiators then walked out of the room, leaving behind a Guild negotiating team that was seeking modest - but important - modifications to the proposed system.

Management negotiators repeatedly insisted they were "comfortable" with their final offer. "We're confident the system is fair and will be fair," Fair told Guild negotiators.

Unfortunately, management had made it very clear during the bargaining that it had no intention of giving serious consideration to the Guild's ideas. (The Guild's full last proposal, swiftly rejected by The Sun, is on the back of this bulletin.) The Sun's vice president for human resources, who had attended virtually every other bargaining session, didn't bother to show up at the table for the Guild's final counter-proposal - a pretty clear sign that management wasn't planning to budge.

Throughout the discussions management was unwilling to seriously consider many of the Guild's proposals, only a few modifications were made after persistent efforts by union negotiators. For example:

· In the self review, employees only will be asked to discuss their year's accomplishments - and not their "developmental needs." (In other words, employees won't be required to list their weaknesses and criticize themselves, which would have given supervisors ready fodder for negative evaluations.) · Employees can make written comments following their performance review meetings, which become part of the permanent record. And if changes are made by upper-level managers, employees get another chance to respond in writing. · Employee signatures mean only that employees have received the evaluations, not they agree with the comments. · The definition of "needs improvement" was modified from "performance not as good as expected" to "performance not as good as required." Since management won't agree to define its expectations, it's hard to mark employees down for failing to meet them.

Management also refused to include in its proposal several important "fairness" standards that it discussed in our meetings, such as:

· The performance evaluation system is NOT discipline. "Our performance evaluation system is not discipline," Fair said. "We're cognizant of employees' rights. This is not a disciplinary process." Specifically, Fair said, The Sun recognizes there's another track for discipline … and that the evaluation meeting will NOT be a forum for a boss to raise involuntary transfer ideas. · Employees are permitted to ask for Guild representation during performance evaluation meetings with their supervisors. While management doesn't have to agree to let a Guild rep attend and will agree on a case-by-case basis, employees may ask. · While the pay-for-performance decisions won't be made solely on performance evaluations, they are based only on what occurs at work. "It's about the work that takes place in the workplace," said Sun V.P. Dale Cohen.

Now that "bargaining" has ended, management intends to impose its final offer on the Guild. The first set of evaluations could begin as soon as Feb. 15. Management promises that all supervisors and employees will go through comprehensive training sessions on the performance evaluation process. (Though as recently as Feb. 4, management negotiators said they still didn't know who would be providing the training - someone inside or outside Tribune/Sun - how long it would take, or whether supervisors and workers would be trained together or separately. Nor did they have training materials prepared.)

There's no question that the performance evaluation system - and the pay-for-performance pool - is going to represent a huge cultural shift for many parts of The Sun. In other companies that have tried similar processes, the results are often less than fair. Discriminatory gaps tend to emerge in both evaluation rankings and pay raises, based on such things as gender, age and race. The Guild tried to help The Sun avoid those pitfalls. Management negotiators rejected most of the ideas.

Surprisingly, management also told the Guild that it doesn't intend to take any steps to formally evaluate this new system. But we will. We will analyze how folks are evaluated to make sure it's a fair process, as well as how the pay-for-performance pool is distributed, to make sure it's done even-handedly. Plans are already underway to do that. Please don't hesitate to help. The only way we can ensure that the system is fair for everybody is for everybody to get involved.

- Guild Bargaining Committee

What Tribune/Sun Rejected

Below is the full last Guild counter proposal, with Guild proposals noted in bold. Only sections in which changes were proposed are shown. The Tribune/Sun rejected the entire counter.

Guild counter proposal
February 6, 2004

Guild proposed changes to Sun proposal are reflected in bold.

I. Purpose The Sun is committed to maintaining a high performance culture where excellent work is both expected and recognized through a process that is fair and non-discriminatory.

II 1. Each employee covered by the collective bargaining agreement will participate in an annual evaluation. Each employee will be informed at the start of the evaluation period of who the evaluator is. If the evaluator needs to be changed for any reason, the employee will be notified. Follow up evaluation discussions shall be held at a time consistent with operating requirements at the request of the employee or supervisor.

5. In each employee's 2004 Performance Review, The Sun will establish the employee's performance goals for the next evaluation. The Sun will also notify employees of their job requirements and necessary skills, which will relate directly to the successful performance of the job.

II.2. Following bullets, add the following:
Statements made by the supervisor as part of the performance evaluation shall not be arbitrary or capricious.

III. 4. The distribution of the pay for performance pool as specified in 5.2.3 shall correlate with performance.