Wage cut approved, 86-46

The Milwaukee Newspaper Guild voted Thursday to approve a 6.6% pay cut for the 191 Journal Sentinel Inc. employees it represents. The decision averts the layoff of 20 or more workers in our bargaining unit, which includes journalists and support staff in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel newsroom and JSOnline.

Guild members approved the pay cut by an 86-46 vote. That vote came after several weeks of talks with the company, which told union negotiators in March that it needed to trim $1.2 million from the Guild-represented payroll portion of the newsroom budget.

At the Guild’s request, the company first offered a voluntary buyout, which resulted in nine employees — six full-timers and three part-timers — accepting the buyout proposal.

After two days of negotiations earlier this month, Guild bargainers agreed to present to our membership a proposal for a 6.6% pay cut that will extend until at least May 2010. In exchange, each member of our unit will receive 10 personal days for the remainder of 2009, and the company will not lay off anyone in our unit through Sept. 30.

Every element of this deal — the wage cut, the personal days and the no-layoff guarantee — was unprecedented. And it was the first time we voted on an agreement with the threat of layoffs hanging over our heads.

This was a very difficult choice for our union, largely because the job security guarantee was so limited. Many members voted “no” because the company refused to guarantee that it wouldn’t just take our pay cut and then turn around and lay off as many people in October as it would have let go in May. But the majority voted “yes” because they believed it was important to protect not only our colleagues' jobs but the high quality of our newspaper.

The most recent round of buyouts was the third offered to Journal Sentinel newsroom employees in less than two years. With those buyouts and the layoffs of the staff of the now-defunct MKE youth-oriented weekly, our local has lost about 55 of the employees that it represented. Our members believed that further reductions would only weaken the paper.

We hope that Journal Sentinel management understands that the Guild has made some significant sacrifices in the interest of our paper's health. We call on them to take those sacrifices into account, and to bargain in good faith with us, without seeking further concessions, as we resume our long-delayed contract talks.