Money, money, money

If all goes well, you might be able to pay off those holiday bills next week after all.

Your Thursday, Jan. 19, paychecks are expected to reflect the first installment of backpay for 2005 and your new pay increase, based on the new contract. Management (specifically, Marilyn Krause) has worked extremely hard in the last week to calculate all those rates and turn them over to the HR and payroll departments.

Guild and management have compared notes on all 270 bargaining unit members and have agreed on what amount of backpay (for across-the-board raises and minimums) that people are owed, as well as the new 2006 rates that people should be at. It's our understanding that all these numbers can be input this week, in time to be reflected on next week's checks.

(For anyone who wants to know what amount of backpay to expect or what their pay level will be for 2006, please contact Guild treasurer Bob Helbig at his e-mail address at work: bhelbig@journalsentinel.com.)

Next up: Merit pay. Most workers will receive another check that is a lump-sum payment for merit pay in 2005. Those figures have yet to be calculated, and it might take until March for those to be paid out. Stay tuned for more information.

One final note: Some of you eager differential filers might find that holiday pay and other requests filed last week (prior to Jan. 5) get kicked back to you. That's because the company didn't update the differential site with new 2006 rates until last Thursday. For example, the holiday pay rate went from $5 to $7. And rather than reimburse you for the $2 difference, managers have been asked to spike those early requests and ask you to file again. If you didn't submit any differentials before Jan. 5, don't worry about it. Differential requests for this pay period are due Friday, Jan. 13, so if you file your differentials by then, you'll be fine.