Tentative contract agreement reached

The Indianapolis News Guild local 34070 today reached a tentative agreement with representatives of Gannett/The Indianapolis Star that would include a 10% permanent pay cut effective Aug. 30, 2009 that would apply to all roughly 185 employees covered by our unit.

That two-year agreement is subject to a ratification vote by duespayers that is scheduled for noon-to-6 p.m. on Aug. 25 (with absentee balloting allowed for anyone who cannot participate in person). Additional details will come early next week, once the company provides our union with its final proposal. We also urge you to attend one of two information sessions [scheduled for 2-to-4 p.m. on Aug. 16 and Aug. 23] so you can understand the ramifications of a “yes” vote versus a “no” vote on the agreement. All info sessions and the election will be at the Musicians Hall, 325 N. Delaware St.

We thank Conrad Bowling, mediator, Indianapolis Field Office, federal mediation and conciliation service, for his assistance in bargaining over the past two days.

E-mail Tom Spalding at indystar68@yahoo.com or Shari Rudavsky at srudavsky@msn.com for an absentee ballot.

Contract negotiations resume Thursday, Friday

The Indy News Guild is getting ready to head back to the bargaining table with Gannett management this Thursday and Friday. We have been able to partially reconstitute our team and get everyone up to speed for the sessions. The sessions will include a federal mediator whose role, we hope, will be to guide us toward a fair contract — and take that contract proposal to membership for an eventual vote.

In the meantime, to help the team fully understand the wishes of our layoff-hammered unit, we put together a confidential, internal-use-only 10-question online survey that went to duespayers. [If you are a duespayer and this is news to you, email us back at this address so we can get your input.]

As a side note, we have contacted the National Labor Relations Board in Indianapolis and made an unfair labor practice charge against Gannett. It is our contention that the company prematurely submitted to us a “last, best and final offer” as a punitive action to our refusing to meet on certain days.

We will keep you posted. Please stay involved. And be sure to wear your lanyards, or red, on Thursday and Friday!

Red Days recap

Just wanted to thank everyone who participated in our Red Days over the past two weeks — especially those who came in on their days off or traveled downtown from the zones just to attend the meetings and show their support for the Guild. The visible support for the Guild at the meetings was impressive. It showed management that our members are united in these contract negotiations.Your Guild reps thought the questions our members asked of Michael Kane and Bob Dickey were strong and made many of the other employees here at The Star aware of how much the Guild is being asked to give up. Nationally, we’ve gotten good coverage from E&P and others of our plight.

Here’s what we’re doing. On Aug. 6-7, 12p-7p, we’re back to the bargaining table with a federal mediator in the room with us. To prepare, the Guild contract bargaining team, which is mustering reinforcements, will meet July 27, 1p-3p, at the musician’s hall. This is an officer and steward only meeting, but e-mail Tom if you would like to attend, as we go over strategy.

Also, we’re in the process of preparing an internal survey so we can get a sample of what members are thinking in terms of elements of a new contract. You will be contacted for your input (and we’ll notify you when it is ready).

We are still in the process of reviewing the “seniority” violations we believe were made during this round of layoffs. Our arbitration for the Dec. 2008 layoff victims we had hoped would occur July 28, but it has been postponed to Sept. 23.

Lastly, please sign your names with your signatures (if you haven’t already) on the thank-you cards near the online desk and photo assignment area in the middle of the newsroom, second floor. We hope to mail these out to our laid-off coworkers by Tuesday, July 28.

That’s it for now. We still have a major fight on our hands, but we’ve shown strength in keeping the company from implementing a draconian 12 percent or higher pay cut — which we believe Gannett had hoped to have already implemented on July 1. Congratulate yourself for your resolve, and keep wearing and using red!

Negotiate, don’t dictate!

– For the Guild,
The officers and stewards of Indy News Guild 70

Wear red on Wednesday to welcome Bob Dickey to town

As we prepare for labor negotiations to resume Aug. 6-7, another opportunity is before you to show a united display of our presence … and would reinforce to the executives here in Indy and in McLean, Va. that Indianapolis News Guild 34070 is a force to be dealt with! PLEASE wear your lanyards, hats, red shirts and other red attire to show your support for the Guild and sit together as a group this Wednesday, July 22! Let’s plan on gathering at Tom Spalding’s desk at 2:50 p.m. so we can get good seats in time for Robert “Bob” Dickey’s 3 p.m. speech at the Star. It’s even more important that you show your colors than it was last week for Star Publisher Michael Kane’s presentation. Dickey is president of Gannett’s U.S. Community Publishing Division and the buck next stops with him!

Directions: Guild president Tom Spalding’s desk is in the business department. For those coming from the zones, the business department is on the second floor of the Star building and to the right past the mailboxes as you exit the employee entrance elevators. At 2:50 p.m. we will all take the stairs down to the meeting room in the basement, file in and sit together as a group (or fill in as many seats together as we can!)

In solidarity,
The Guild officers and stewards

Bargaining set for Aug. 6-7, important developments

The Indianapolis News Guild has some important new developments to share with you regarding our ongoing effort to craft a final contract that both negotiating teams can accept and that you, our duespayers, can ratify soon.

Acting on the advice of our parent union, TNG-CWA, we proposed to the company that we involve a federal mediator at this stage of the negotiations. Having received no objections from our verbal and written communications about the mediator, we contacted Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service Commissioner Conrad Bowling and requested possible meeting dates from him. He offered Aug. 6 and 7 and we have accepted those dates. The company has agreed.

Also, we have filed a charge with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) against the company, based on threats that management made to the Guild in the course of discussions over possible bargaining dates. The company threatened to issue a “last, best and final” proposal if we would not agree to certain bargaining dates. When we informed them that we were unable to agree to the certain specific dates that management was demanding, the company issued that “last, best and final” proposal. This violates labor law on several counts. Bargaining dates must be mutually agreeable and not something that one side dictates to another. In addition, a “last, best and final” proposal is something that is normally given after all attempts at a mutual agreement have been exhausted. It is not supposed to be used as a punitive tool to force the union to meet before it is ready to resume discussions. We believe the company’s actions are premature, punitive, regressive and illegal retaliation for our refusal to be unnecessarily rushed back to the table, as well as retaliation for Guild members daring to reject their previous package offer. We are contemplating additional charges with the NLRB.

The company did this after accusing the Guild in a meeting last Friday of “stalling” after we asked for an extra week to reconstitute our bargaining committee, which was devastated by layoffs of team members Sylvia Halladay and Michelle Watson. Simply put, the company still wants at least a 12 percent pay cut from the Guild-represented employees. See below for more details about what the company is now seeking. We also asked management to provide us with answers to an information request that they have had for many weeks now, and the company told us that their response to our request for information was contingent on our agreeing to their bargaining dates (another violation of labor law). They did eventually provide us with a response but it is lacking in any substantial details.

Star management and Gannett corporate lawyers want people to believe that we are unduly dragging out negotiations. Given the circumstances, we firmly believe we are acting appropriately in seeking the time to fully reconstitute our bargaining committee and seeking more information about the company’s supposed financial needs. We have NEVER refused to bargain; we have not agreed to the company’s timetable as to when the next meetings will take place and as a result, they have resorted to bully tactics. By the way, the company has never given us any explanation why they feel the meetings must take place right away.

Our motto since talks began in January is “Negotiate, don’t dictate” and we have sacrificed our pay through two furloughs and lost valued comrades. Given the economic climate, we believe that Guild members would agree to a wage freeze for two years and might accept some type of pay cut – especially if that cut isn’t permanent, or would improve when Gannett sees ad revenues improve.

But Gannett is claiming economic needs without providing proof, and they have so far failed to provide any relevant information to us regarding their justification for a double-digit percentage pay reduction. Guild President Tom Spalding asked Indy Star Publisher Michael G. Kane for an explanation of the numbers and was rebuffed, as many of you heard.

The Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service is an agency of the United States government that handles arbitration and mediation of labor disputes and contract negotiations. We are hopeful that the neutral mediator will be of assistance in reaching understandings that can lead to a finalized tentative agreement that both sides can accept. As we said before, we’re waiting to see if the company will accept the mediator’s invitation to meet.

Further complicating these negotiations is the fact that the company has been sending out mixed messages. They started on April 17, when we were told in a memo: “While Star Media has seen similar economic impact on our local business, we were able to fare better than the company as a whole.” They continued July 16, when Robert J. Dickey told analysts during a Gannett 2^nd quarter earnings call: “I would tell you that our interstate group, which is Indianapolis, Midwest portion of the country, right now is our strongest performer.”

Another issue: The copy of the company’s last, best and final contract offer was purported by their side to (except for the wage proposal) to be identical to the tentative agreement previously provided to the Union – the deal that membership rejected 97-9 on June 30. Upon review, however, we find that the proposal is nowhere near identical and in fact we have identified a number of significant differences between this proposal and the previous package that was presented to Guild membership for a vote. This makes us wonder if we have received an incorrect version of their offer or if the company is being disingenuous.

How it shakes out (this is our initial review of their proposal and should not be considered a complete inventory of changes at this time):

• An immediate 12 percent pay cut for all Guild represented employees, rather than a split 8% and 4% as in the rejected offer.
• No pay increases for the two-year term of the contract, same as rejected offer.
• Wage scales remain but no one advances for term of contract, same as rejected offer.
• It completely eliminates merit pool language; rejected offer kept the merit pool language but the merit pool went dormant. New language would give managers a great deal of discretion regarding future merit pay increases.
• Seniority language related to layoffs is much worse than the rejected offer.
• Same 10 jobs lose OT.
• More Guild positions become exempted than in rejected agreement.
• Still allows paraprofessionals to write stories.
• Still adds “custom publications” to management rights section.
• Still adds “flexibility” language that leaves advertorial/editorial decisions to sole discretion of publisher and now does not include any exclusions of any classifications; rejected agreement excepted reporters, copy editors and photographers from advertorial work.

Changes from current contract there were not in rejected offer:

• Outsourcing language has been put back in the offer; this was not in the rejected contract offer.
• It eliminates the language that outlined how previous experience was used to figure out where new employees would start on the pay scale.
• Adds a clause to sentence on poor review not being reason to reduce pay that says, “unless the Employer determines that a consistently poor performance rating in a current job classification merits a job transfer to a lower classification in lieu of termination.”
• Employees who are removed from their positions by the company may move into lower paying jobs but only with Employer approval; current contract left decision to leave position for lower paying job to the employee.
• Changes notification time of permanent change in work day (8 to 10 hours or 10 to 8 hours) to two weeks; current contract calls for 30 days notice.
• Eliminates daily overtime.
• Call backs guaranteed 3 hours of straight time minimum; current contract calls for 3 hours of OT minimum.
• Allows scheduling of split days off for reporters based on requirements of beat.

View a PDF copy of the company’s contract proposal

And finally, it is uncertain whether the company is still demanding that the Guild drop our current arbitration on the December layoffs.

We’ll continue to fight on your behalf.

We are planning an internal survey to reassess what our members can live with.

Sincerely,
Tom Spalding
President, Indianapolis Newspaper Guild

In consultation with our International