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The new Milwaukee Newspaper Guild contract is now available online. You can find the complete text of our 2005-'08 contract on the Guild's Web site, www.milwaukeenewsguild.org. And if you'd like to compare it with our previous contract, that's still posted on the site as well.

A few more updates on how the new contract is being implemented:

* Nearly everyone received back pay for 2005 across-the-board raises and raises to new minimum wage scales on Thursday's paychecks. Only four people will have to wait for the next check. Still to come are the lump-sum payments in lieu of 2005 discretionary raises.

* Some people may be able to take even more vacation than expected. The contract set up "transitional vacation accounts" with extra vacation for everyone hired from 1995 through 2005. Officially, you can take up to one week of that extra vacation each year from now through 2011, or until it's used up. But some managers might be flexible about letting you take more than a week if scheduling needs permit. So ask, and you may receive.

* Our bargaining unit has grown by one. The contract required management to eliminate one of 58 positions excluded from contractual protection at the beginning of the year. As a result, the Database Editor was moved into the unit, resolving long-standing Guild concerns about whether bargaining-unit work was being done in that position. Two more excluded jobs are to be eliminated, one by July 1 and one by next Jan. 1.