Thursday, December 18, guild officers met with management to discuss outstanding grievances. One grievance that had been filed early this year was for a newsroom employee classified as a paraprofessional who was writing stories, just as a reporter would, but receiving paraprofessional pay. The company wouldn’t promote this person to reporter, but in October agreed to pay a negotiated $8 differential for past stories he had written. The company also agreed to pay all paraprofessionals $8 per by-lined story for all future stories.
With this agreement, the Guild had dropped the grievance. But, since then, paraprofessionals haven’t been getting their extra $8 per by-lined story. Another problem is the company now says by-lined Q&As are “content”, not by-lined stories. The Guild has refilled its grievance and is seeking pay for paraprofessionals doing work above their job classification.
Indianapolis NewsGuild 