Newsroom avoids latest downsizing; arbitration sought on previous cuts

None of the 39 Journal Sentinel Inc. employees laid off Monday came from the newsroom staff represented by the Milwaukee Newspaper Guild.

In a letter to employees, Publisher Betsy Brenner said the affected workers were taken from circulation, advertising and other business departments. She characterized the layoffs as the final staff cuts of 2009, a year in which the newsroom previously lost 84 jobs to a combination of involuntary downsizing, buyouts and attrition. All but six of those jobs came from our bargaining unit.

As for the newsroom downsizing earlier this year, grievances have been resolved, one way or another, for most of the 35 staffers involved, but the rest are headed to arbitration.

The Guild filed a grievance challenging all of the layoffs, questioning whether the company had followed our contract's seniority provisions. Since then:

• The company has canceled layoff notices for two employees and allowed a third to transfer to a different job outside the newsroom.
• The Guild agreed not to pursue its grievance for 16 staffers, including the three who kept jobs. Most were low-seniority workers who were laid off in accordance with our contract, while some asked us not to move forward.
• Twelve employees have reached settlements with the company, and other settlements remain possible.
• For the remaining employees -- a maximum of seven -- the Guild board has voted to move to arbitration, a legal process in which both sides choose a neutral individual to decide the case. That can take several months. This group includes three workers who have lifetime job guarantees that the company does not consider valid. The Guild has filed a separate grievance over that issue, and that grievance is also headed to arbitration.

We have reached a resolution on a third grievance, which sought compensation for employees who tried but failed to take all of their 10 personal days (provided as part of the agreement to cut our wages earlier this year) before they were laid off. In that case, we agreed to drop the grievance on behalf of the employees who were sent home during the contractually required 60-day notice period, in exchange for assurances that the employees still working during the notice period — about eight — would be allowed to take their remaining personal days before leaving the payroll.

A separate grievance over the company's suspension of the tuition reimbursement program is on hold until we can discuss the issue in bargaining.

Meanwhile, the company has moved 10 formerly excluded editors into the bargaining unit. Guild and company representatives have discussed this move in terms of its relationship to the layoffs, the ratio between excluded managers and bargaining-unit personnel, whether some of the jobs should have been posted and whether some of the new unit members are now eligible for substitution pay for filling in for managers. We have agreed in principle on how to deal with those issues and expect to resolve them when we return to the bargaining table.

The next bargaining sessions are set for Dec. 16-17.