Vacation deal approved

In voting Tuesday, Milwaukee Newspaper Guild members approved a package of vacation changes, 55 to 5. Guild leaders and Journal Sentinel Inc. management representatives expect to sign the agreement within the next few days, retroactive to Jan. 1.

As an immediate result, members of our bargaining unit will be able to take two key changes into account when scheduling their 2011 time off: (a) All full-timers will now have three floating holidays, a net gain of two extra days off each year, and (b) all employees will now have an extra three months to take each year of vacation, so 2011 vacation can be used as late as the first quarter of 2012.

The latter point is of particular importance this year for employees who were hired between 1995 and 2006 and who may have time remaining in their transitional vacation accounts, or TVA. Because the TVA is supposed to be scheduled before the end of 2011, the change will allow affected employees to use up TVA first and roll over some 2011 vacation to early 2012. Guild representatives have personally contacted each affected employee to be sure they know how much TVA they have and how it must be used.

Another feature of the deal will restore a fifth week of vacation, after 20 years of service, for full-time employees hired in 2006 or later. Because all employees hired before 2006 were already eligible for the fifth week, part-timers hired from 2006 on will be the only newsroom employees who wouldn't qualify for it.

The tradeoff for these improvements: Employees hired from 1995 on, who are on the "earn-as-you-go" vacation system, would have to pay back the company if they left the paper after taking more vacation than they had earned. However, management has given the Guild on-the-record assurances that this provision would not apply to those who take buyouts or are involuntarily downsized.