Category Archives: 2009 Contract Negotiations

The bargaining committee of Indianapolis News Guild Local 34070 has agreed to put Gannett’s two-year contract offer (dated 4-15-09) to our membership for a vote.

The committee initially rejected that offer, and at a meeting Thursday between the Guild and Indy Star reps, little progress was made to improve any of the provisions in the company’s proposal from April. However, the company made a small concession on the wording of the flexibility language (i.e. who will and who won’t have to handle ‘advertorial’ products in the future) and clarified the potential impact of new seniority language. Our representative from the international Newspaper Guild, Jay Schmitz, who represents us at the bargaining table and has helped negotiate several of our most recent contracts with the Star, advised us to fulfill our original commitment to the company to take this proposal to our full membership for a vote.

The date has not been set, but that vote will be held within the coming weeks. You will be notified by mail. We are hoping for 100 percent participation from duespayers at the time of the election.

We’ll soon get you a working copy so you can see what you’ll be voting on, but here are the biggest concerns:

• A 12 percent pay cut (8 percent on July 1 and 4 percent more on Oct. 1)
• No pay increases for the two-year term of the contract.
• No guarantee there will not be more layoffs despite these pay concessions.
• No written guarantee there will not be more furloughs despite the pay cut.
• Dropping our arbitration that involves 7 co-workers ousted Dec. 3.

We reiterated to the company that the bargaining committee still cannot recommend or endorse this package. We also told the company about the mixed messages we have received in recent weeks regarding the financial state of the Star (that our newspaper remains more profitable than Gannett as a whole according to a recent letter to the employees from new publisher Michael Kane), and that economically speaking, much less of a sacrifice is being asked of newspaper Guilds that are in much bigger trouble than Gannett. We suggested ways their proposal could pass; they prefer to stay as-is.

So be it.

We expect to accomplish several things with this vote. It will satisfy the company’s desire to have the members vote on this proposal, despite our warnings there is little chance it will be approved. We expect it to show the company that Guild members are united in demanding a fair contract. This vote will help the contract negotiating committee at the bargaining table.

With our futures at stake, we promise to be proactive and solution-minded, with info sessions to come.

This afternoon, the bargaining committee of Indianapolis News Guild 34070 voted 9-0 to NOT take Gannett’s two-year contract offer, dated 4-15-09, to our membership for a vote at this time. We informed the company that our agreement to hold an election on their proposal was contingent upon the Guild reaching an understanding about how the flexibility language (i.e. advertorial) would be applied. This did not occur on 5-7-09, when Gannett informed the Guild that it would not modify that part of the package.

Simply put, the Guild wanted an ironclad guarantee that protects information center (i.e newsroom) employees from being used to work on advertising content. We didn’t get it.

The Guild told the company that we stand ready to sit down and discuss modifications to their proposal, and that we have ideas, based on weeks of group and individual discussions we have had with membership, as well as discussions with our international advisors, on how we can both achieve a deal that meets both of our objectives.

Beyond that issue, those of us doing labor negotiations felt like, in talking to duespayers, that the conditions in the proposal as outlined on indynewsguild.com (a 12% pay cut, etc.) were too harsh — containing sacrifices to pay, to ethics, and to the aspects of the contract that we hold dear, including seniority. We said “no” to the company because we felt the membership was telling us “no.” We are hoping that the company will actually sit down and make a few tweaks to their 4-15-09 proposal; if you have suggestions as to what the news and building services staff can live with, please let us know.

Repeating: There will be no vote held, at this time.

We appreciate your support, feedback and solidarity. We’re working to schedule another info session with you later this month.

— Tom Spalding, president