2 deals reached on job security

Negotiators agreed Thursday to keep two job security provisions unchanged in the next contract between the Milwaukee Newspaper Guild and Journal Sentinel Inc.

But the deal does not affect the most crucial job security issue on the table: severance and notice pay during an economic downsizing. That question remains to be negotiated.

One of Thursday’s tentative agreements focuses on a different kind of severance. The contract provides one week of severance pay for each year of service when employees are terminated for reasons other than economic reductions in force, gross misconduct, excessive absenteeism or excessive tardiness. Management had sought to eliminate that payment.

The other agreement deals with probation periods. The Guild had sought to reduce the probation period for newly hired journalists from six months to 12 weeks, the same as for non-journalists. In a package deal, Guild negotiators agreed to drop our probation proposal and management negotiators agreed to drop their individual severance proposal.

Later in the talks, negotiators will tackle the larger severance provision, which calls for employees who lose their jobs in a downsizing to receive two weeks of severance pay for each year of service, plus 60 days’ notice or 60 days’ pay. The company is seeking to cut the severance pay from two weeks to one week per year of service, and to eliminate the notice pay altogether. The Guild is seeking to keep both parts of the provision intact.

We also discussed contract provisions dealing with columnists Thursday. The next bargaining sessions are set for Oct. 1 and Oct. 2.

Three join Guild board

Milwaukee Newspaper Guild members chose three new Executive Board members Monday in the first contested board election in several years.

The membership also handed full terms to four officers who had stepped up to new responsibilities last month after former President Amy Rinard left the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel in the recent buyout.

They are Greg Pearson, a day copy editor who had moved up from 1st vice president to succeed Rinard as president; letters editor Sonya Jongsma Knauss, who had been 2nd vice president and succeeded Pearson; day copy editor Karen Samelson, who moved up from secretary to succeed Knauss; and feature writer Jan Uebelherr, who had been an at-large board member before succeeding Samelson.

New to the board are metro reporter Dani McClain, a steward, and sports designer Ana Menendez. Ozaukee-Washington Bureau reporter Tom Kertscher, a steward, returns after a six-year absence; he previously served one term as 2nd vice president and also has been a steward leader and a negotiator.

Re-elected were Treasurer Amy Hetzner, a Waukesha County Bureau reporter, and at-large board members Janine Ghelfi, an editorial assistant, and Mark Johnson, a metro reporter. Ghelfi and Johnson are both steward leaders and Ghelfi is also on our bargaining committee.

Waukesha County Bureau reporter Erin Richards also sought a board seat but fell one vote short in the balloting.

All of those elected will take office Oct. 1. Pearson thanked three members of the departing board for their service: Rinard, a former Waukesha County Bureau reporter who remains on the bargaining committee; former board member Kawanza Newson, who left her job as a metro reporter to become the Milwaukee Health Department's spokeswoman; and photo technician Dave Kirner, a former Guild president who is stepping down from his at-large board seat but remaining on the bargaining committee.

Also at the meeting, members elected Pearson, Knauss and Samelson as delegates to the international Guild's annual sector conference, with McClain as alternate, and Pearson as delegate to the annual convention of the Guild's parent union, the Communications Workers of America.

Next contract could change timing of raises

All Journal Sentinel newsroom employees could receive merit raises on the same date, under a tentative agreement last week.

Negotiators for the Milwaukee Newspaper Guild and Journal Sentinel Inc. reached that deal, as well as agreements on diversity and ethics provisions, during contract talks Wednesday through Friday.

Under the current contract, members of our bargaining unit receive discretionary raises no more than a year after their last merit or promotional raise. Management negotiators sought contract language to allow performance reviews and merit raises for everyone in the entire company at the same time, although they noted that top newsroom editors had not yet agreed to this idea from human resources.

Guild negotiators did not oppose the concept — noting that at least one contract in the 1980s did provide simultaneous merit raises for everyone — but raised questions about how it would work. The resulting language calls for raises to be prorated in the year the change is implemented, if it happens, and for managers to discuss implementation procedures with Guild representatives.

Other agreements would:

• Resolve a long-standing point of contention by explicitly stating that our contract takes precedence whenever it differs from corporate and newsroom ethics codes, and any discipline for alleged ethics code violations must follow the contract and meet its standard of just cause. In return, the Guild agreed that bargaining-unit members should sign acknowledgements of receiving the ethics codes and/or any required training on them. Guild leaders have long objected to some provisions of the ethics codes as being broader than the contractual standard of avoiding conflicts of interest or the appearance of such conflicts. The ethics codes have never been amended to reflect rulings from arbitrators and the National Labor Relations Board in favor of the Guild’s position. The Guild has regularly reminded members of that history and some members have balked at signing off on receiving the ethics codes.
  

• Provide a similar solution for the company’s no-harassment policy. The Guild never objected to this policy, but the issue was clouded when the acknowledgement of receiving it was combined with the ethics policy acknowledgement. In return for this agreement, management negotiators dropped their attempt to wipe out all contractual protections against discrimination and harassment and to replace them with language stating only that the company would follow applicable state and federal laws.
  

• Exempt full-time journalists with more than five years of prior experience from a requirement that all new employees be assigned mentors; cap unpaid leave for attending international and regional Guild meetings; and clarify past practice on military leave and academic leave.

We also discussed contract provisions dealing with severance pay for individual dismissals (not mass downsizings), probationary periods, columnists, training, union jurisdiction and union membership. The next bargaining session is set for Sept. 18.

Last Racine bureau worker cut

The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel has laid off a part-time Racine County Bureau employee, in an aftershock from the newspaper's downsizing.

No newsroom employees were included in the group of 22 workers laid off in late August. That was thought to be the end of a wave of downsizing that saw 24 newsroom employees take voluntary buyouts, after the shutdown of MKE claimed another five newsroom jobs in July.

The Racine County Bureau's office in Sturtevant actually had been empty since May, after the last reporter, former Guild President Jennie Tunkieicz, left for a Kenosha County government job. The Sunday Racine County section kept going for a while with mostly freelance material until it, too, was eliminated in late summer.

But one part-time editorial assistant continued to work from home, producing calendar material that was being posted online after the section was dropped.

Managers offered her a spot in the downtown newsroom, but she declined and was laid off. In accordance with our contract, she received 60 days' pay, plus two weeks of severance pay for each year worked.