Milwaukee Newspaper Guild

The Milwaukee Newspaper Guild has launched a campaign to urge Journal Sentinel Inc. management to restore our bargaining-unit members’ wages to the point they were at before last year’s 6.6% pay cut.

“Our sacrifice has been great,” newly elected Guild President Tom Silverstein wrote in one of two recent letters to members. “We lost a lot of good co-workers and friends and accepted a pay cut greater than management did. Today, thanks in large part to us, the company is on firmer footing. That is why now is the time for the company to follow the example of many companies in this area and restore workers’ wages and benefits in full.”

Here’s the complete text of both letters:

October 18, 2010

Dear co-worker,

Over the past year and a half, we’ve seen a lot of changes in our workplace and few of them have been good. Layoffs left us all shaken and unsure of our job security and the future of the newsroom. To our credit, we made it through the worst of the recent economic downturn and managed to produce a terrific product.

As the newly elected president of Local 51 of the Newspaper Guild, I’d like to take this opportunity to reach out to everyone in the newsroom and beyond to help us work toward restoring the things we lost when the company cut an uncompromising swath through our wages and then through our workforce.

Our sacrifice has been great. We lost a lot of good co-workers and friends and accepted a pay cut greater than management did. Today, thanks in large part to us, the company is on firmer footing. That is why now is the time for the company to follow the example of many companies in this area and restore workers’ wages and benefits in full.

The first step in formulating a campaign is to remind management of just that.

With that in mind, Local 51 wants to know how the 6.6% pay cut has affected you. We ask that you visit www.surveymonkey.com/s/2KDC3C3 and take a brief survey. We want to know where the cut has hurt you the most and what challenges you and your family faced as a result. The survey is open to everybody in the newsroom, not just Guild members.

Please express yourself freely and urge your co-workers to participate, too. We need to know how our membership has been affected. We hope to use these anecdotes to press our case with the company for full wage restoration. We’d prefer that you include your name, but if you would like to remain anonymous, that is fine.

If you have other concerns that you feel are more or equally important, we want to hear them also.

As we press forward in the coming weeks, the information you provide will be vital in showing management the sacrifice each and every one of us has made to keep this company profitable. The survey won’t take much time to complete and it will be of great benefit to the Guild.

You can expect to hear more from us about upcoming union activities that will show management we are united in the belief now is the time to make things right.

Thank you for your participation.

Tom Silverstein
President
Local 51 of the Newspaper Guild

October 21, 2010

Dear co-worker,

For months, Journal Sentinel workers have shared in the sacrifices to reduce company expenses. Wednesday’s third-quarter earnings report from Journal Communications is a sign that the company’s fortunes are improving.

It signals that the time is now to discuss how to reward employees who have seen their incomes slashed even as their workloads have grown. As the company recovers, so should workers.

Among the highlights in the third-quarter earnings report:

• Revenue was up 1.7% from a year ago. That was largely attributed to gains in the broadcast division based on political ads and auto ads.
• Operating earnings nearly tripled, to $11 million from $4.1 million for the same period a year ago.
• Net earnings rose to $6.3 million, compared with $1.8 million a year ago.

The report pointed out that revenue for publishing operations continues to fall, because of weakness in retail and classified advertising, and going forward, it sees that weakness continuing.

But it’s important to know that despite the weak economy, the company has been able to reduce its debt by more than 25% so far this year. This means it was able to reinvest in itself at a time when many companies can’t.

Perhaps the most puzzling part of the report was CEO Steve Smith’s comments that the company would be “selectively investing in our people” going forward. It’s hard to know what that means, but those of us who have been around a long time cringe at the thought the company will once again be selectively “investing” in its people.

Journal Sentinel workers accepted a 6.6% pay cut — a rate higher than management’s reduction — in hopes of saving people’s jobs, and then watched the company slash the workforce dramatically. Our commitment to producing an outstanding newspaper and website never wavered during that trying period and remains today as the company gets back on solid footing.

As a group, we deserve to be rewarded.

If not now, when?

Tom Silverstein
President
Local 51 of The Newspaper Guild

Milwaukee Newspaper Guild members chose Tom Silverstein as our new president Tuesday.

Silverstein, a Journal Sentinel sportswriter, is a longtime steward who was a member of our most recent bargaining committee.

He succeeds Greg Pearson, who decided not to seek re-election. Pearson, a copy editor, served more than two years as president, after nearly four years as 1st vice president, the longest anyone had held our grievance chairmanship. He also has been a steward leader, board member and negotiator.

Members re-elected metro reporter Meg Kissinger to a second term as 1st vice president; copy editor Karen Samelson to a third full term as 2nd vice president; metro reporter Erin Richards to a second term as secretary; metro reporter Amy Hetzner to a fifth full term as treasurer; and feature writer Jan Uebelherr and Politifact Wisconsin reporter Tom Kertscher to a fourth full term and a third term, respectively, as at-large board members.

Returning to the Executive Board, after an absence of more than four years, is former president Bob Helbig. He’s also been our vice president, our longest-serving treasurer, a board member, steward leader, bargainer and most recently our wage data coordinator.

Helbig, a deputy business editor, succeeds two at-large board members who did not seek re-election: metro reporter Mark Johnson, who served more than four years, and editorial writer James Causey, who served one year. A bylaws amendment adopted last year reduced the size of the board from 10 members to eight, effective with this election, and one seat had been vacant.

All of those elected will serve one-year terms, starting Friday. Their first task will be to fill appointed posts, including steward leaders and committee chairs and members. The vice presidents and steward leaders then will choose stewards.

Also at Tuesday’s annual meeting:

• Members elected Silverstein and Kertscher as delegates to the international Guild’s sector conference, with Samelson and Helbig as alternates. Silverstein was also elected as our delegate to the international convention of the Guild’s parent union, the Communications Workers of America, with Kertscher, Samelson and Helbig as alternates.
• The membership renewed the “universal rebate” that keeps our dues at 1% of pay, for another year. An annual vote is required to maintain the discount.

The Milwaukee Newspaper Guild has completed settlements for Journal Sentinel newsroom employees who were laid off in August 2009. The last three settlements were signed in late July and early August.

We had filed grievances on behalf of 19 employees who were laid off last year despite ranking higher in seniority than others who were retained.

One of those employees, online producer Emmett Prosser, was offered his job back. He returned to work in March. The other 18 reached financial settlements with Journal Sentinel Inc.

The Milwaukee Newspaper Guild’s leadership recently cleared the way for Journal Sentinel newsroom employees to receive a 2% bonus, but not without a reminder that we still expect management to restore our wages to what they were before last year’s 6.6% cut.

On July 21, Journal Communications CEO Steve Smith announced a lump-sum bonus for everyone who had taken pay cuts, with the payout amounting to 2% of one year’s wages at our current (i.e., reduced) level. Although that bonus took effect automatically for non-represented employees, union consent was required to pay it to anyone covered by a union contract. We needed to agree by noon the next day in order for the bonus to appear on the July 29 paycheck; otherwise, it would show up on the next check after an agreement was signed.

Our Executive Board met that deadline, authorizing Guild President Greg Pearson to sign an agreement that specified the bonus would not count toward wage restoration. However, board members also sent management a letter urging swift restoration of our previous wage levels.

When we originally agreed to the pay cut, the deal called for wages to be restored for our bargaining-unit members at the same time as for non-union employees, and in proportion to the non-represented group’s 6% cut. That language was subsequently incorporated into our contract, which also requires that our wages would be restored across the board even if non-union employees get their money back on a “merit” basis. Smith had previously hinted that wage restoration might be under consideration for the second half of this year, but his most recent letter suggested 2011 as a more likely target.

Also, although the bonus is calculated as a percentage of our current pay, the contract specifies that wage restoration would be based on our old pay. For example, if non-union employees get back 2% of their former pay, we would get back 2.2% of our previous wage rate, and so on until the full 6.6% is restored.

Here’s the complete text of the bonus agreement:

“This confirms the agreement between the company and the union that the company shall make a cash bonus payment to eligible bargaining-unit employees. The eligibility for and terms of the cash bonus are as set forth in Steve Smith’s letter of July 21, 2010. This cash bonus shall not be considered a partial restoration of the negotiated wage reduction by which the company is required to restore partially or wholly under certain conditions.”

And here’s the complete text of the Guild’s letter to management:

“The board of Newspaper Guild Local 51 is pleased that management has chosen to provide a bonus to Guild members. However, we would like to make clear that since the pay cuts were intended to be temporary, it is our fervent hope that the company will move quickly to restore salaries. Bonuses, while better than no increase, do not offer employees the security they deserve.”

Milwaukee Newspaper Guild and Journal Sentinel Inc. representatives signed a new contract last week, covering our bargaining unit through 2011.

A small number of newsroom workers will receive raises as a result of the contract. That’s the group who were due to move up on the pay scale, but who were frozen at their previous wage level while negotiations were going on.

Because of the 6.6% wage cut, those individuals will move up to 93.4% of the minimum rate for their new pay steps. The same principle will apply to anyone who moves up the pay scale in the future, until and unless our wages are restored to their previous level. If you are in this group and you have any questions about how this applies to you, please see a Guild representative.

Milwaukee Newspaper Guild members ratified a new contract with Journal Sentinel Inc. by a vote of 54-10 on Thursday.

The pact, which runs through 2011, preserves several key protections from previous contracts, including our severance and notice pay in case of downsizings and our cap on the percentage of health care costs we must pay, although the company gains more control over who to lay off and over how our benefits are structured. The contract also keeps much of our current wage and differential structure in place, and outlines how — but not exactly when — our wages would be restored to where they were before last year’s 6.6% pay cut.

In short, it’s a contract that falls short of what many of us had hoped for, but that is nonetheless the best our bargaining committee believed we could get, and in some ways better than some of the others we’re seeing at other Guild locals across the country.

Guild and management representatives will now proceed with signing and implementing the contract.

The Milwaukee Newspaper Guild has now reached settlements for all but three of the 19 employees who filed grievances over last year’s downsizing.

In late March, JSOnline producer Emmett Prosser returned to the newsroom, the only one of the group to date who has won back his job. Earlier this week, another employee reached a financial settlement, the 15th member of the group to do so.

The remaining three are scheduled to go to arbitration in June. All of them have lifetime job guarantees from their prior service in the composing room, but the company has refused to recognize the validity of those guarantees.

In all, 35 newsroom employees lost their jobs in the layoffs. Among the 16 employees whose layoffs were not challenged — either because they were low in seniority or because they asked us not to grieve for them — the company has canceled the layoffs of two part-time scoretakers and has rehired a full-time online producer in a different part of the company. Three other part-timers were hired as temps.

The Milwaukee Newspaper Guild has set Thursday as the date to vote on a tentative agreement for our 2009-2011 contract with Journal Sentinel Inc.

But first, we will hold our regular quarterly membership meeting at noon Wednesday at Turner Hall. International Representative Darren Carroll and Bargaining Committee members will be present to answer any questions that Guild members may have on the contract. Lunch will be served.

The next day, voting will be held from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. and 5 to 7 p.m. in the Journal Sentinel’s Grant Library. Members who need an absentee ballot should contact 2nd Vice President Karen Samelson as soon as possible. Mail ballots must be returned to our post office box by Thursday.

Only dues-paying Guild members are allowed to vote on the contract. Non-members who wish to join can contact any Guild representative.

All Guild members have been provided with the complete language of the tentative agreement, along with summaries of all changes from the prior contract and related unwritten understandings between the company and the Guild. Anyone who has questions before the membership meeting can contact any member of our Bargaining Committee.

The Bargaining Committee has unanimously recommended a “yes” vote on the contract. The Executive Board has decided to offer no recommendation.

The Milwaukee Newspaper Guild has scheduled two more meetings for members to discuss the tentative agreement reached on our next contract with Journal Sentinel Inc.

Those sessions have been set from noon to 1 p.m. Tuesday, and again from 6 p.m. to 7 p.m. the same day. Both will be in the Journal Sentinel’s Abert Room, and members can bring their lunch or dinner.

International Representative Darren Carroll, who helped negotiate the deal, will join us for the noon session, and members of our bargaining committee will be available at both sessions to answer any questions Guild members may have about the tentative agreement.

No date has been set yet for a ratification vote. Watch for more information soon.

Among related matters:

• In addition to the key provisions outlined in a previous post, the tentative agreement means that the company will not be allowed to compensate interns in academic credit alone, nor can it require departing employees to pay back the company for taking more vacation than they had earned. The deal also maintains the “evergreen clause” that keeps an old contract in force while a new one is being negotiated.
• The Guild and Journal Sentinel Inc. have agreed to settle our grievance over the company’s suspension of the tuition reimbursement program. The settlement provides a cash payout to any newsroom staffer who was turned down for tuition reimbursement, starting last fall.
• We are now up to 14 settlements on grievances stemming from last year’s layoffs, leaving five individuals’ cases unresolved. While further settlements remain possible, arbitration hearings have been set on the remaining cases, starting later this month.

Negotiators for the Milwaukee Newspaper Guild and Journal Sentinel Inc. reached tentative agreement Thursday on a new contract that would last through 2011.

Reflecting our membership’s priorities, the deal would keep our current two weeks of severance pay per year of service in layoffs; require the company to offer buyouts before layoffs; call for the eventual rollback of our 6.6% wage cut to be distributed equally across-the-board; avoid cuts in differentials; and maintain the current cap on health care premiums. At the same time, the agreement would reduce the role of seniority in determining who is laid off and would increase the company’s control over our benefits.

Against the backdrop of the worst economy in which we have ever bargained, and in comparison to the settlements being reached by other Guild locals nationwide, our bargaining committee considers this the best deal we could reach. Committee members will discuss the tentative agreement at our previously scheduled membership meeting at noon Tuesday at Turner Hall. All dues-paying members are welcome and encouraged to attend. Lunch will be served. We will not be taking a ratification vote at this meeting; that will be scheduled later.

Here are the key details of the three-year agreement, which would run from Jan. 1, 2009 (retroactively), to Dec. 31, 2011:

Job security: No change in the two-weeks-per-year severance pay or the required 60-day notice for layoffs. At least two weeks before issuing that notice, the company would be required to announce a layoff target and offer a buyout on terms at least as favorable as the contractually required severance; each person accepted for the buyout would reduce by one the number to be laid off. Instead of the current requirement to lay people off primarily in order of reverse seniority, with some exceptions, the company would base layoff decisions on a combination of factors — such as skills and diversity — but seniority would be the deciding factor if everything else is equal.

Wages: If wage cuts are partly rolled back for any other group of Journal Sentinel employees, we would get a proportional wage restoration across the board. No change in wage structure, differentials, overtime, turnaround or mileage reimbursement.

Benefits: Our health care, sick leave, pensions, 401(k)s and tuition reimbursement would all be the same as what the company offers its other employees, with no contractual prohibition against changing or even eliminating benefits. However, the company’s share of health care premiums could not drop below the current minimum: 65% of the cost of the benchmark plan for a family that does not qualify for the non-smoking discount, with higher company shares for everyone else.

Time off: We would get five personal days this year; the company would decide whether we get any personal days next year. No changes in vacations, holidays, family leave, funeral leave or jury duty leave.

The Bargaining Committee has voted unanimously to recommend the membership ratify this contract. The Executive Board and the international Guild will also review the deal prior to a membership vote.