A Day of Decision for NY Times Newspaper Guild Members

On Nov. 13, 2012 hundreds of New York Times Newspaper Guild members jammed the Hotel Trades Council hall, nearly four blocks from the Times building, to vote on the tentative contract that was reached on Oct. 28. 

 

When Guild President Bill O'Meara called for a vote on the tentative Guild-Times contract on Nov. 13 (left), the hands went up throughout the packed hall, Guild staff member Patricia Trattner helped tally the votes (below right), while those in the standing room section voted on their feet. (Photos by Suzanne DeChillo)

Times Guild members in the back of the hall, including Peter Applebome (in blue shirt), make sure their votes are counted

 

Debate over ratification had been spirited and widespread in the days leading to the vote. Some insisted the terms of the deal were inadequate and should be rejected, while others said they were the best they were likely to get without resorting to more drastic means and a riskier confrontation with management. But at the two New York meetings there was little debate about the deal. Members came to vote.

 

Guild President Bill O’Meara reviewed the highlights of the contract, addressed the risks of rejecting the deal and joined a majority of the Guild Bargaining Committee in recommending that members ratify it. Voting was done separately by each of the two Guild units – print and digital – at The Times that would be consolidated under the new contract. If either unit voted against ratification, the deal would have gone down.

 

In the end, members were decisive in ratifying the deal. The print side, including those based in Washington and elsewhere, voted for the contract by 472 to 43 with one abstention. The digital unit voted for ratification, 49 to 21.

 

 

 

For Christoph Fuhrmans of the New York Times digital unit and his wife, Sharilyn Hufford of the print unit (above left), the ratification vote results meant they both would be covered by the same contract. Their daughter, Hannah, abstained. Above right, Guild President Bill O'Meara briefs members on the contract before the vote. Below, the ayes had it.

 

NEWSPAPER GUILD MEMBERS RATIFY CONTRACT WITH 

THE NEW YORK TIMES

NEW YORK, Nov. 13 – Journalists, advertising professionals and other Guild-represented employees at The New York Times on Tuesday ratified a new contract that preserves a defined benefit pension plan and increases overall compensation over the next three years, the Newspaper Guild of New York said.

By a show of hands in New York, Washington and other bureaus, Guild members voted in two groups by a combined 521-to-64 with one abstention in favor of ratifying the contract. The vote followed a vigorous internal debate over top management’s willingness to lavishly reward itself and its former CEO while refusing to come across with higher pay increases for the staff that actually produces the newspaper and website.

Guild leaders asserted – and a large majority of members apparently agreed – that the contract, reached on Oct. 28 with the help of a private mediator, offered the best terms possible without resorting to more drastic action. Throughout this year, Times Guild members, especially those in the newsroom, engaged in a series of job actions that included a silent protest outside a daily editors’ meeting, taking a work break en masse and leafleting the annual shareholders meeting.

In explaining the highlights of the contract to one of two packed meetings on Tuesday, Guild President Bill O’Meara lauded the new found activism of Times Guild members, which he said was crucial in enabling Guild negotiators to win compensation gains, despite the demands from company executives as recently as September for a concessionary contract.

“The level of engagement and activism among members at The Times has been greater than anything I’ve seen in my 24 years at the Guild,” O’Meara said. “Without it, we would never have been able to accomplish what we did.”

The new contract, which came after 21 months of bargaining, will replace Times members’ traditional pension plan with an innovative defined benefit plan known as the adjustable pension plan, or APP. Unlike traditional plans that encumber employers with unpredictable and often volatile unfunded liabilities, the APP requires only a single annual contribution, not unlike the 401(k) plans that employers prefer, but still provides participants with monthly retirement income for life. The APP still requires government approval, which the Guild is confident it will get.

Within the next 30 days, Times Guild members will receive a 3 percent bonus, and starting March 31, 2013, they will receive the first of three 2 percent annual raises. Starting in 2014, they become eligible for an incentive bonus of up to 2 percent, based on the same plan that covers upper managers, and which would have yielded a payout of 1.1 percent, based on its recent average. The contract expires on March 30, 2016.  

The contract, which also combines two employee groups – those of the newspaper and those of its digital operations – under a single unified contract, also fortifies the independent fund that pays employee medical claims with additional company contributions and preserves severance pay for current employees.

Times Guild members listen to brief explanations of the new tentative contract before voting for ratification on Nov. 13. (Photo by Suzanne DeChillo)

The Guild, Local 31003 of the Communications Workers of America, represents 1,100 text, photo, web and video journalists at The Times, along with several other newsroom, advertising and other professional and administrative employees. Overall, the Newspaper Guild of New York represents some 2,800 employees, mostly at New York-based news organizations, including Thomson Reuters, Consumer Reports, Time Inc., Standard & Poor’s The Nation, WPIX, Scholastic, Amsterdam News, and El Diario.

CONTACT: Bill O’Meara – 212-575-1580

Intellectual Imperialism

By Robert Daraio

Broadcast Union News

In order to think about ways to align labor rights and human rights and create the changes needed to eliminate the poverty and oppression caused by those ignoring the basic rights that all people should reasonably expect to enjoy; we must address the concept of Intellectual Imperialism.

Intellectual Imperialism is the exploitation of intellectual capital by focusing our best and brightest scientific and engineering minds on developing innovations in labor saving, rather than life saving, technology. The mindset that only by reducing the number, and cost, of workers can a mature industry remain profitable, is a perception in dire need of change if international labor and human rights standards are to be effectively implemented and enforced.

We invest our government and corporate research funding capital, and the efforts of our best people, creating new and improved ways to have fewer and fewer people able to run our industrial plants, rather than focusing that same set of limited resources on discovering innovative ways of employing the same number of people to create more, better quality, more useful products, whose production would create even higher levels of employment.

Better products increase demand, greater demand increases industrial employment to meet that demand, higher employment increases disposable income, more disposable income creates more consumer spending, and all contribute to higher profits, and therefore a stronger economy.

This is not to say that progress and innovation, geared towards increasing profit, is any way a bad thing. The profit motive has served to create the funding for all manner of innovations.

From early civilizations prior to the first time an ancient Greek, Phoenician, or Norse sea captain asked their kings and queens to sponsor exploration to find new trade routes, products, and treasure, profit has driven innovation.

Scientific and engineering advances have improved the quality of life worldwide, at all economic levels. We must continue to innovate, but we must also change the focus of our innovative efforts such that innovation creates, rather than eliminates, employment, increasing, rather than reducing, industry’s ability to generate profits for the benefit of their stakeholders.

The reallocation of capital and human resources to maximize education and employment opportunities is vital to the health and prosperity of our nation and the international community.

A greater percentage of corporate and public research and development funds must be used to improve training and education. This is essential to properly prepare our young people for their place in the future work force.  Keeping the skills of today’s work force vital and current, so their skill set can continue to evolve, is key to keeping them prepared for the constant work place change that is the hallmark of the 21st century global economy.
 

Corporate funding to permanently endow innovative elementary and secondary school programs; corporate and union funded endowment of professorships, teaching assistantships, and research staffs at universities; government, corporate, and labor partnerships in the endowment of international educational exchange programs will create a permanent environment for ongoing educational innovation.

In order to foster the cultural and core value changes required, it is imperative that governments, multinational corporations, organized labor, human rights organizations, academia, and community activists begin the dialogue necessary to form the consensus needed to implement meaningful, lasting, change.

A key element is the agreement and commitment by all International Labor Organization (ILO) member nations to implement changes in their domestic labor laws and trade policies to create the ability for workers everywhere to have the protection of, and means to enforce, the four conventions comprising the ILO’s Fundamental Principles and Rights at Work.[1]

The commitment to enforce the right to freedom of association and the right to engage in collective bargaining; elimination of all forms of compulsory or forced labor; abolition of child labor; and finally, elimination of discrimination in employment and occupation with serious penalties universally imposed on violators is essential.[2]

Further, enforceable legislation needs to be passed guaranteeing that workers employed by international corporations anywhere in the world should be paid a wage that creates a standard of living equivalent to that enjoyed by that company’s workers with the best pay, benefits, and conditions employed in similar jobs. This is the only way to bring the race to the bottom to a halt and put an end to social dumping.

An international coalition of government, industry, and labor must come together to create a plan to design and implement a worldwide program of green infrastructure construction projects to replace outdated, crumbling, bridges, roads, railroads, water treatment, and power delivery systems in developed countries, and bring renewable, green, transportation, water and power delivery systems to developing nations.

This will create new business opportunities for capital investment as well as millions of management, administrative, technical, skilled, and unskilled jobs around the world. The investment in education will create the innovations needed to create this green transportation and utility infrastructure, which will create opportunities for capital investment in green mining, agricultural, industrial, and service industries, resulting in more employment, more corporate profits, and a higher standard of living for people everywhere.

If we do not, if we continue to ignore the ever-increasing hunger, squalor, sickness, ignorance, and worldwide economic and ecological damage, caused by the unregulated greed and shortsightedness of so many in political, industrial, labor, and social leadership, if we continue to march, with flags waving and bands playing, obliviously backward into the dark ages, the legacy we leave our children and grandchildren will be a millennium of darkness and despair.

YOU must choose, WE must choose, choose  between sitting by while our civilization spins into chaos, or standing up, helping our family, friends, and neighbors to stand up, then standing together, work in solidarity to make this world a cleaner, greener, healthier, more innovative and profitable place. A place where there is opportunity for all.

Robert Daraio is a Local Representative of The Newspaper Guild of New York, CWA Local 31003; the Recording Secretary of the New York Broadcast Trades Council; moderator of the Broadcast Union News website; and a 2011 graduate of the MALS program at the CUNY Murphy Institute for Worker Education and Labor Studies.

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[1] The ILO is the international organization responsible for drawing up and overseeing international labor standards. It is the only 'tripartite' United Nations agency that brings together representatives of governments, employers and workers to jointly shape policies and programs promoting Decent Work for all. This unique arrangement gives the ILO an edge in incorporating 'real world' knowledge about employment and work. http://www.ilo.org/global/about-the-ilo/lang--en/index.htm

 

[2] Adopted in 1998, the Declaration commits Member States to respect and promote principles and rights in four categories, whether or not they have ratified the relevant Conventions. These categories are: freedom of association and the effective recognition of the right to collective bargaining, the elimination of forced or compulsory labor, the abolition of child labor and the elimination of discrimination in respect of employment and occupation. http://www.ilo.org/declaration/thedeclaration/lang--en/index.htm

'Times' union stages 'informational' picket as incoming C.E.O. comes under scrutiny

By  Joe Pompeo
http://www.capitalnewyork.com

The fiery 20-month contract battle between unionized New York Times employees and company management appears to be getting hotter every day. 

Following a staff walkout several weeks ago, Times staffers are now planning to picket in front of the paper's 8th Avenue headquarters Wednesday afternoon, according to a press release distributed to the media this morning:

Employees of the New York Times will conduct and informational leafleting and picket in front of the Times Building today at 4 p.m. to continue to show solidarity in their fight to get fair wages and benefits from management. The two sides have been locked in a difficult contract negotiations, with the company still demanding large cuts to the staff’s wages and benefits.

Times staff will carry signs and pass out informational literature to other employees and  the public starting at 4 p.m. and continuing until 5:30. The event is only informational, and is not a job action or an attempt to stop employees from working. The union representing the Times staff, the NY Newspaper Guild, hopes they will raise awareness both inside the company and among the public about the state of negotiations.  

This latest event comes on the heels of several other demonstrations of solidarity among Times employees. The union also plans to launch a social media effort today to recruit the public in their cause.

That social media effort calls on staffers to spread the following tweet: "Retweet this to show support for @nytimes journalists & staff who are fighting wage and benefit cuts #saveourtimes," according to a memo posted on Jim Romenesko's blog.

The contract dispute, which recently entered mediation, is a double-whammy of bad P.R. for the Times Company, whose incoming chief executive, Mark Thompson, is coming under scrutiny for a scandal that was allegedly muzzled under his watch as C.E.O. of the BBC. The late former BBC host Jimmy Savile is alleged to have sexually abused underage girls during his time at the U.K. broadcast giant, and Thompson insists he was not involved in the canceling of a BBC-produced investigative report into the matter.

On Tuesday, Times public editor Margaret Sullivan called on the paper to "aggressively" cover Thompson's role in the BBC's "troubles," writing: "How likely is it that the Times Company will continue with its plan to bring Mr. Thompson on as chief executive?"

 

Guild Proposal Hits Brick Wall; Times Negotiators Deride Move

Contract negotiations ground to a temporary halt today, as New York Times management, with poorly disguised contempt, dismissed a counteroffer made by the Guild. In a world-turned-upside-down moment, management characterized its small, grudging and insufficient proposals of last week as “significant movement,” and suggested that we should keep bargaining against ourselves on salary and benefits.

NEGOTIATIONS UPDATE

An example? The Guild agreed today to reduce its first year wage demand from 4 percent to 3.5 percent, a concession valued at approximately half a million dollars. And what is management’s current first-year wage offer now that we’re 20 months into negotiations? Zero, 0, nada.

The Guild also moved on its proposal for a bonus plan, including cutting its maximum potential payout in half, far below the management maximum. Management negotiators derided this as unrealistic in the extreme. Bernie Plum, the Times’s outside lawyer (his law firm, Proskauer, represents the NFL against game officials, and we’ve seen how well that’s turned out), suggested we waive collective bargaining rights if we want to enjoy the financial benefits of managers. The Guild offered movement too on freelance fees; management said nothing, which, given the tenor of their comments, probably was just as well.

From beginning to end – the planned four-hour session lasted about a half-hour – management’s team did its best to look and sound mightily annoyed at our “lack of movement.” It is important to keep in mind, though, that however tightly Bernie Plum and Vice President for Labor Relations Terry Hayes hold to this fantasy, Guild members know better. For months we have taken the role of adults. We agreed to change our existing pension, perhaps our most valuable benefit, and put a sophisticated proposal on the table that saves the company millions of dollars in future costs. We have made $5.5 million worth of concessions, including on the company’s health care contributions, and now on salary, and yes, even on pension contributions. We embraced one unified contract for the newsroom and for digital, and we’ve made many compromises to get there. Despite all this, and after Guild negotiators had just moved further in his direction, Plum responded: “You’re not going to see further big movement on our part at this time.”

We, of course, want to engage in further constructive negotiations, at any hour on any day. But to continue to reduce, say, our wage demand, even as management insists on keeping a big, fat zero on the table, is a mug’s game.

As to management’s pension proposal, please keep in mind that The New York Times now pays about 10 percent of payroll (a little more than $10 million) into our pension to fund its ongoing obligations. They want to reduce that payment to 5 percent, and they pretended that even that was a great concession. As Guild President Bill O’Meara said in response, “It’s like asking us to cut our wages in half.”

The bottom line? Management’s current proposal would render immediately insolvent our existing pension plan, our proposed plan and more or less any plan we could devise.

The Guild remains ready, willing and able to negotiate. The key word is negotiate, not surrender. We will assume for now that management’s ill temper will pass. But we advise members, strongly, that only our concerted efforts and actions will make clear to The New York Times owner and management just how painfully far short their current proposal falls.

The next scheduled negotiating session is set for Thursday at 10 a.m.

# # # # #

The New York Times Union Contemplates a Collective Chant in the Lobby — or a Public Demo

By Cynthia Cotts
THE NEW YORK OBSERVER
 Photos added by Broadcast Union News

Just before noon on Sept. 24, a stream of about 200 New York Times staffers left the company’s headquarters at 620 Eighth Avenue, heading for the local hotel workers union a few blocks north. A meeting was set for noon to inform Times union members about the status of ongoing contract negotiations and to send a message to Times publisher Arthur Sulzberger Jr. 

Those attending the meeting ranged in age from twenty-somethings to sexagenarians and in profession from journalist to operations to ad sales. Bold-faced names included reporters Michael Barbaro, Steven Greenhouse and Richard Pérez-Peña, not to mention columnist Clyde Haberman, who has worked for the Times since 1977. The meeting was called by the Newspaper Guild of New York, which represents the Times union.

“The Times has started to move a little bit,” guild president Bill O’Meara told the crowded room. “They need to move more.”

Bernie Plum

The union’s last contract expired in March 2011, and negotiations have dragged out a year and a half, led by Mr. O’Meara and Bernard Plum, a lawyer with Proskauer Rose who represents management. But now “the clock is ticking,” as Mr. Plum likes to say, and management has threatened to declare an impasse if a new contract is not in place by mid-November.

Problem is, management’s current proposal is only slightly more generous than the first one it put on the table, and union leaders don’t feel it’s enough. In an email last Thursday, the union’s mobilizing committee informed its members: “It’s time to get worried. It’s time to get organized. It’s time to fight back.”

To be sure, not every Times staffer belongs to the union, and not everyone is jonesing for a strike. As of last Friday, the mood in the newsroom was “dispirited,” one union member told The Observer. About 20 reporters had attended a negotiating meeting last week and heard for themselves the aggressive tone used by Mr. Plum.

Mr. Plum, who had previously threatened to replace the union pension with a 401K, has made minor concessions of late, such as agreeing to the union’s “adjustable pension plan.” At a negotiating meeting on Sept. 20, he eased up for the first time — offering about $7.5 million more overall, a move the union found promising, but still “not enough,” according to union statements. The two parties remain about $10 million apart in their offers, a guild official told union members at the Sept. 24 meeting.

“The Guild is pleased that the Times has finally made some movement in our direction,” Mr. O’Meara told The Observer in an interview last week, “and we hope we can build on it to get to a contract settlement that our members will find acceptable.”

Mr. Plum did not respond to a request for comment on the status of negotiations.

For all the talk of mobilization, as of last week, many employees were ready to accept the company’s current terms, including some of the web designers, who tend to be young and expect to change jobs in the future. Given the ambivalence, union members in favor of resistance decided to take it step by step. The first step was persuading 200 people to leave Times headquarters to attend the Sept. 24 mobilization meetings. (A second took place at 1:30.)

“If you only ever attend one guild meeting, make it one of these,” union organizers told colleagues last week.

At the first meeting, Mr. O’Meara asked the rank and file to stage collective “actions” to help the union put pressure on management.

“We are not planning a strike,” he said. “A strike is a nuclear weapon. It’s mutually assured destruction.” Instead, in the coming days, the mobilizing committee will call on the newsroom to act in concert, he explained, because “actions that germinate in the newsroom have the most impact.”

“silent corridor” demonstration of February 2012

He recalled the “silent corridor” demonstration of February 2012, when Times staffers lined the hallway outside a Page One meeting as the editors filed in. The initial trigger for the demonstration was management’s proposal to take away the pensions for staffers in the Times’ foreign bureaus, but the message had evolved into a broader defense of the union’s pension.

As examples of what’s coming next, Mr. O’Meara proposed launching a collective chant in the lobby, staging a public demonstration outside the building or setting up the inflatable rat — to which one man in the audience replied, “We want the rat!” Mr. O’Meara emphasized the need for solidarity.

As a second step, Mr. O’Meara asked all union members to sign a letter which was posted on the union’s Times web site today. Addressed to Mr. Sulzberger, executive editor Jill Abramson and incoming CEO Mark Thompson, the letter declares the company’s current contract demands “untenable and destructive” and asks the troika to “end the era of shriveling compensation.”

Recalling that the staff took a 5 percent pay cut in 2009 and that overtime pay has fallen by half since 2008, the letter argues that the staff has already given its fair share to produce ever more quality journalism for the company’s multi-media platforms.

“The news report in The New York Times, online and in print, is richer and more rewarding than ever,” according to the letter, which has no byline. “We are doing more, but making less.”

Finally, Mr. O’Meara invited union members to attend the next negotiating meeting, which is set for Sept. 25 at 10 a.m. He noted that when observers from the newsroom are present, management negotiators speak more respectfully.

In the Q&A session that followed, several staffers echoed O’Meara’s call for solidarity.

“None of this works unless everybody’s on board,” said Mr. Pérez-Peña.

“Members have to stand up and push to get what we deserve,” said Mr. Greenhouse, who covers labor.

And then they went back to work.

New York Times Staffers Consider Demonstrating Over Contract, Say They 'Will Accept Nothing Less'

By Katherine Fung
The Huffington Post

The situation at the New York Times is "at the threshold of crisis" over contract negotiations, according to staffers who told the paper's management that they "will accept nothing less" than their demands.

The New York Observer reported that about 200 staffers met Monday to discuss how to respond to the stalemate in negotiations. Bill O’Meara, president of the Newspaper Guild of New York, said that the paper's management has made some concessions but that they are not enough, and asked the crowd to mobilize.

The actions he proposed included chanting in the lobby, demonstrating outside the building or setting up the inflatable rat outside. O'Meara was clear, however, that they "are not planning a strike," which he called "a nuclear weapon." Several staffers at the meeting, according to the Observer, spoke out in support of his call for collective action.

Union members have been working without a contract for eighteen months now, and the negotiations — which have been marked by silent protests and videos featuring angry journalists — have gotten increasingly tumultuous. There has been some movement in the dealings, but the biggest sticking point remains the New York Times' call to cut employee pensions.

On Monday, staffers also signed a letter to publisher Arthur Sulzberger Jr., executive editor Jill Abramson and incoming CEO Mark Thompson — at least the second addressed to management during the negotiations — suggesting that they are near a tipping point.


24 September 2012

Dear Arthur, Jill and Mark,

Eighteen months after our contracts expired, we stand at the threshold of crisis. Our duty to the institution and to you is to speak plainly.  The company’s demands are untenable and destructive.
Last week, Times negotiators once again insisted on major cuts to our wages and benefits. These demands differ only in degree from earlier ones, with an ugly new twist. They come with a threat of impasse.

We implore you: do not permit The New York Times to be steered any closer to this abyss. This penny-wise path will leave us and the company worse off,  eroding the quality of our journalism now and in the future. The clock is ticking, as Bernie Plum has said. Indeed it is. We already see talented colleagues regularly being hired away because they can no longer afford to work here.

In March, the company’s chief labor executive, Terry Hayes, wrote: 

“And the most important thing we can do is to eliminate the expense, risk and volatility of the defined-benefit pension plans.” 

In response, the Guild proposed a new kind of plan that virtually eliminated volatility and risk to the company. Indeed, the risk was shifted to us, along with shrunken benefits.  The company has accepted this zero-risk, zero-volatility plan, but stunningly, now demands severe cuts in retirement contributions.

We have been asked for work rule revisions, job description reform, a single contract to cover print and digital employees. In almost every case, the Guild agreed. We believe our written agreement should catch up with the agile, enterprising spirit of the newsroom where, for instance, most meaningful distinctions between print and digital journalists have already been erased.

Still, the Times demands cuts to our compensation and threatens impasse.

Over the last eight years, while company revenues were declining, the cost of wages and benefits dropped even faster. In 2009, Arthur asked us to accept a 5% pay cut. We said yes, by a vote of 427 to 36.  Overtime is down by half since 2008.  Yet the news report in The New York Times, online and in print, is richer and more rewarding than ever.

We are doing more but making less.

For us, the most important thing is that you end the era of shriveling compensation. We urge you: step back from this corrosive, needless crisis.  Consider the relief that The Times has already won in these talks. Reflect on the revelations of this past decade. It wasn’t luck or brand legacy that allowed this great institution to make the transition to a digital era during an economic collapse. It was the people of The Times, working seven days a week, around the clock.

This generation of Times journalists has more than earned fair wages and benefits. The next generation expects them. You will need that generation every bit as much as you needed – and need – this one.
We will accept nothing less.

Through two wars, multi-nation revolutions, mass political polarization, and global economic turmoil, we all, managers and employees, have rallied to provide the world’s premier news coverage, and to persevere and succeed in business.

Terry Hayes told us what your “most important thing” is. We believed you. Now we have told you what ours is.

Believe us.

"This generation of Times journalists has more than earned fair wages and benefits," the letter reads. "The next generation expects them. You will need that generation every bit as much as you needed – and need – this one. We will accept nothing less."