Pension tension?

Milwaukee Newspaper Guild leaders plan to review an abrupt change in the company's pension plan.

Many Journal Sentinel Inc. employees have received letters from the company in recent days, announcing the pension changes.

The letter says that current employees will have a "choice" (the letter puts that word in quotes twice, as if corporate executives find something bizarre about giving employees choices about their own benefits) in September between keeping their pensions in their current form, or freezing their pensions at this year's level and receiving a 3% employer match to their 401(k) plans in future years.

New employees, by contrast, would have no choice, in or out of quotation marks. The letter says nobody hired after May 1 could get a traditional pension and every new employee would be offered the 401(k) match instead. It also says this decision was reached in late April, meaning that part took effect immediately, before we heard about it.

Management did not discuss these changes in advance with Guild leaders. We will be studying this issue carefully to determine whether the changes are in compliance with our contract.

As for whether the changes would be a better deal for members, that would likely depend on individual circumstances. Contractual issues aside, everyone should examine how the numbers would work for them.

New Guild leaders elected

Milwaukee Newspaper Guild members elected Amy Hetzner as treasurer and Mark Johnson as an at-large board member at Local 51's membership meeting Monday.

Hetzner, a Waukesha Bureau reporter, was appointed interim treasurer by the local's Executive Board last month, after longtime Treasurer Bob Helbig was named to the management position of Journal Sentinel deputy business editor. Monday's vote keeps her in the post through the end of Helbig's term Sept. 30.

Before taking over our books, Hetzner was serving her second term as an at-large board member. She's also chair of a special joint wage study committee, has been active on our Human Rights Committee and assisted our Bargaining Committee with research during recent contract talks.

Johnson, a metro general assignment reporter, was picked to fill the remainder of Hetzner's board term, through Sept. 30. He is in his third term as a steward leader, coordinating stewards, membership recruiting, mobilizing and contract enforcement for metro day-shift reporters, Wisconsin news bureaus and MKE.