By DYLAN BYERS
On Media
More on the New York Times - New York Newspaper Guild front:
Following today's post about the Times's decision to drop its proposal to extend the work week from 35 hours to 40, a Times reporter writes in to argue that the allowance is actually a "faux concession."
"Management, knowing that many of us work well more than 40 hours a week, and virtually never put in for overtime, thought, let's call their bluff," the reporter explains. "[They're thinking,] we'll officially agree to a 35-hour week, even for the digital folk, because management knows that we're so dedicated, so Type A, so hyper-competitive that whether we have a 35-hour or 40-hour week, hardly anyone is going to put in for overtime, whether we work 50 or 60 hours."
Newspaper Guild of New York President Bill O'Meara told me earlier that some reporters do file for overtime, but as the reporter points out, the provision mostly applies to copy editors and clerical staff, and many Times reporters have written in via email and Twitter to inform me that they work more than 40 hours and do not file for overtime.
The reporter's email, in full:
NYT copy editors, many of whom consider their jobs boring and painstaking, don't like having to work more than 35 hours a week, even as many of us reporters work 50 hours or more a week. Many copy editors bitterly opposed going to a 40-hour week for that reason, especially when the Times wasn't offering any offsetting increase in compensation for the long week. At the same time, the digital folks who already have a 40-hour week thought, why the hell are we oldsters complaining about going to a 40-hour week.
Some in the Guild thought, hell, if management is going to officially increase us from 35 to 40 hours, they should throw in some money -- it's insulting not to offer some financial compensation. Adding insult to increased hours, management coupled the proposed increase in hours with an offer of a three-year wage freeze. At the same time, some Guild officials took the stance -- over our dead bodies will we accept a 40-hour week, the 35-hour week was something our brothers and sisters fought for, sacrificed for and won decades ago.
So management, knowing that many of us work well more than 40 hours a week, and virtually never put in for overtime, thought, let's call their bluff -- we'll officially agree to a 35-hour week, even for the digital folk, because management knows that we're so dedicated, so Type A, so hyper-competitive that whether we have a 35-hour or 40-hour week, hardly anyone is going to put in for overtime, whether we work 50 or 60 hours.
So on paper, it looks as management made a generous concession by agreeing to a 35-hour week. But they just called our bluff and are sitting pretty. They didn't give us a thing. It was a faux concession on their part.
In an earlier email, the reporter also took issue with the "newsspeak" used to characterize another provision dropped from the Times's proposal:
When you cut through [the] "Newsspeak," the bottom line is the NYT is proposing a wage freeze in the contract's first year, a 1 percent raise in the second year and, for the third year, a 1 percent lump-sum payment, which would not become part of the wage base. It insults the intelligence to call that a bonus.
Assuming that inflation averages 2.5 percent a year over those three years, that 1 percent raise over three years would translate into a 6.7 loss in wages after factoring in inflation.
Times reporter, Michael Luo commented: No NYT reporter I know works 35 hrs. and most probably can't remember last time they filed for OT.
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