Contract ratified, 54-10

Milwaukee Newspaper Guild members ratified a new contract with Journal Sentinel Inc. by a vote of 54-10 on Thursday.

The pact, which runs through 2011, preserves several key protections from previous contracts, including our severance and notice pay in case of downsizings and our cap on the percentage of health care costs we must pay, although the company gains more control over who to lay off and over how our benefits are structured. The contract also keeps much of our current wage and differential structure in place, and outlines how — but not exactly when — our wages would be restored to where they were before last year’s 6.6% pay cut.

In short, it’s a contract that falls short of what many of us had hoped for, but that is nonetheless the best our bargaining committee believed we could get, and in some ways better than some of the others we’re seeing at other Guild locals across the country.

Guild and management representatives will now proceed with signing and implementing the contract.

Layoff grievance settlements reach 16

The Milwaukee Newspaper Guild has now reached settlements for all but three of the 19 employees who filed grievances over last year's downsizing.

In late March, JSOnline producer Emmett Prosser returned to the newsroom, the only one of the group to date who has won back his job. Earlier this week, another employee reached a financial settlement, the 15th member of the group to do so.

The remaining three are scheduled to go to arbitration in June. All of them have lifetime job guarantees from their prior service in the composing room, but the company has refused to recognize the validity of those guarantees.

In all, 35 newsroom employees lost their jobs in the layoffs. Among the 16 employees whose layoffs were not challenged — either because they were low in seniority or because they asked us not to grieve for them — the company has canceled the layoffs of two part-time scoretakers and has rehired a full-time online producer in a different part of the company. Three other part-timers were hired as temps.

Guild sets membership meeting, contract vote

The Milwaukee Newspaper Guild has set Thursday as the date to vote on a tentative agreement for our 2009-2011 contract with Journal Sentinel Inc.

But first, we will hold our regular quarterly membership meeting at noon Wednesday at Turner Hall. International Representative Darren Carroll and Bargaining Committee members will be present to answer any questions that Guild members may have on the contract. Lunch will be served.

The next day, voting will be held from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. and 5 to 7 p.m. in the Journal Sentinel's Grant Library. Members who need an absentee ballot should contact 2nd Vice President Karen Samelson as soon as possible. Mail ballots must be returned to our post office box by Thursday.

Only dues-paying Guild members are allowed to vote on the contract. Non-members who wish to join can contact any Guild representative.

All Guild members have been provided with the complete language of the tentative agreement, along with summaries of all changes from the prior contract and related unwritten understandings between the company and the Guild. Anyone who has questions before the membership meeting can contact any member of our Bargaining Committee.

The Bargaining Committee has unanimously recommended a "yes" vote on the contract. The Executive Board has decided to offer no recommendation.