PLAIN DEALER LAYOFFS PROTESTED| 02-28-09

See letter of protest here.

PAY INCREASES | February 2009

Guild members will get pay increases effective March 1. $9 of wage/fringe package deferred to Health & Welfare Fund.

All wages for employees in the bargaining unit will increase March 1 as a result of an agreement by the Guild and The Plain Dealer on the breakdown of the $23 wage-fringe package called for in the collective bargaining agreement.

Top minimum salaries in each classification will increase between $10.26 and $14.45 per week. The reporter top minimum will rise $14.45 to $1,197.16 per week. Employees paid above the minimums set forth in the contract will receive weekly raises equal to the dollar amount added to their wage minimum.

After consultation with the Guild trustees of the Health & Welfare Fund and the Pension Fund, the Guild proposed deferring $9 to H&W and none to pension. The Employer agreed. The Guild proposed taking the remaining $14 and distributing it as an across-the-board wage increase. The Employer would not agree to an across-the-board dollar increase. Top-minimum percentage increases are: A-1, 1.15%; A, 1.22%; B, 1.24%; D, 1.46%; F and H, 1.35% each.

The $9 deferral to the health fund was made to basically cut in half what the fund’s actuary said would have been the Kaiser premium increase for 2010. While the actuary mandated no increase for 2009, diverting nothing would have led to an $18 mandated amount for 2010.

No money was diverted to the pension fund since ongoing problems in the stock market have led to benefit and service accruals being frozen effective 1/1/2009, barring action by the federal government to ease stringent benchmarks required by the Pension Preservation Act. This was the final negotiated wage/fringe package amount in the contract extension agreement signed in 2004 that runs through 2/28/2014. The agreement calls for a wage/fringe re-opener in 2010, when the parties will meet to discuss economics for the final four years of the agreement.

Click here for a copy of the new wage scales.

Rep unit's Bob George re-elected Local 1 president

Bob George of the Canton Repository unit was re-elected Local 1 president at the Northeast Ohio Newspaper Guild's Executive Board/Annual Membership meeting Tuesday night (Nov. 25) at the Guild office in Brooklyn Heights.
George was the only person nominated for the position and was elected by acclamation.

Also nominated and elected by acclamation to Local office were the following:

First VP: Yuvonne Webb, Akron Beacon Journal unit.
Second VP: Debbi Snook of the Plain Dealer unit.
Third VP: John Higgins of the ABJ.
Fourth VP: Rachel Dissell of the PD.
Treasurer: Ron Rutti of the PD.

All are incumbents except for Dissell, who will replace John Gruner.

Election of unit officers and delegates to the Executive Board will take place in January. Members of all units will be notified by letter of the date, time and place for their respective meetings.

The annual Executive Board meeting and Installation Dinner will be held Jan. 27, 2009, in the hall at the Guild office in Brooklyn Heights. It is open to all Local and unit officers, Executive Board delegates and alternates, and trustees of the PD-Guild pension and health and welfare trusts as well as the BJ-Guild health trust. — Rollie Dreussi

COMPANY PROPOSES THAT WE PAY HEALTH CARE
Nov 7, 2008

Yesterday Plain Dealer Guild members met with labor relations. It was our third meeting with them about layoffs and our push to get the company to provide health care coverage.

The company is now proposing WE pay for health care.

They want us to take money from our health fund reserve to pay for 3-months of coverage. That would be about $75,000 out of a $700,000 reserve.

This amounts to a concession. You would not feel it now, but it could mean at some point we have to make up the difference through a future wage deferral. Even if it's only a buck or two, it's still your money.

Karen Long asked if they would share the burden. The company said no.

Our position remains the same. We are obligated of course to examine all proposals. The next step is for the health board trustees to look at it.

Meanwhile, mobilization efforts continue. Stay tuned.

Harlan Spector

Picketing protests PD's anti-union buyout offer

More than 100 people, most of them Guild members, joined together for informational picketing in front of The Plain Dealer on Thursday evening (10/30).

The orderly protesters carried signs as they marched back and forth in front of the building at 1801 Superior Ave. E.

The show of solidarity was to express our displeasure and raise public awareness about the PD's disparate treatment of union employees compared to its non-union and managerial employees.

The non-union employees were recently offered a buyout package that included generous health care coverage. Our people are only being offered severance pay — something that is already guaranteed in our contract in the event of a layoff. The PD has refused to offer ANY health care with the Guild buyout package.

The Guild feels this is both unfair and anti-union. Especially since in a buyout our members give up unemployment compensation and a contractual right to potential rehire.

These are difficult times for both the newspaper industry and the economy. But the PD has said it is still making a profit.

It makes no sense to get rid of news people who are integral to producing your product. If you are going to cut those jobs, at least do it in a non-discriminatory way.

The measure of a company is not how it treats its employees when times are good, but how it takes care of them when times are tough. The Plain Dealer has chosen to discriminate between its employees, and do no more than the minimum mandated by contract for its Guild employees. Since a buyout without health care is no incentive to leave, this is nothing more than a voluntary layoffs program. — Rollie Dreussi, Executive Secretary
Northeast Ohio Newspaper Guild-CWA, Local 1

See The Plain Dealer page for more news on the current situation: