Guild challenges layoffs

The Milwaukee Newspaper Guild has filed multiple grievances challenging the involuntary downsizing of 35 employees of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel newsroom.

All of those workers were notified Aug. 4 that they would lose their jobs in early October. They are receiving full pay and benefits during the 60-day notice period required by our contract.

One grievance focuses on the way employees were selected for layoff. Our contract requires seniority to be the primary factor in this decision, but some of the most senior staffers were cut. At the moment, this grievance covers everyone involved in the layoff, but we are continuing to analyze the individual merits of each case, in consultation with our attorneys, and considering the wishes of the workers involved.

Another grievance calls on Journal Sentinel Inc. to honor the lifetime job guarantees of four newsroom employees who previously worked in the composing room but were nonetheless laid off. In one of those cases, the company had already acknowledged the validity of a staff member’s lifetime job guarantee, and we thought his name showed up on the layoff list by mistake, which is why we previously reported 34 layoffs, rather than 35.

A third grievance asks for compensation for personal days not taken by the laid-off employees. In exchange for the 6.6% wage cut we accepted earlier this year, all members of our bargaining unit were given 10 paid personal days. Many employees made an effort to schedule those days before the Oct. 1 expiration of the no-layoff guarantee that was part of the same deal. But in some cases, repeated requests to schedule these days were denied. Unlike unused vacation, unused personal days ordinarily would not be paid out on termination.

Finally, the Guild filed an unrelated grievance over the company’s suspension of the tuition reimbursement program. This program is defined by our contract and the company did not bargain with us when it sought to suspend the program earlier this year. Members of our bargaining unit who were already attending classes were reimbursed through the spring semester. We filed the grievance when a newsroom staffer was turned down for reimbursement for fall semester tuition.

The grievance process requires a series of discussions with the company in an attempt to settle our differences. If those efforts are unsuccessful, our local’s Executive Board will decide whether to bring the cases to arbitration.

After we filed the grievances, our bargaining team met with management negotiators and discussed contract provisions dealing with vacations, part-timers and databases. We reached tentative agreements to keep one of the vacation provisions in its current form and to make technical changes in language covering part-timers.