The debt owed to the 11 workers illegally laid off by the Times Union in 2009 has now grown to $750,000.

It has grown by $150,000 since September, and it continues to grow especially with compounded daily interest being charged. In 2010, after a hearing, an administrative law judge ruled the Times Union broke the law in laying off the 11 and again in declaring impasse in those talks.

The company appealed that decision to the full board in Washington, D.C., which unanimously upheld the decision that the TU broke the law.

Now that the NLRB is taking the company to court to enforce its order, the newspaper can settle with the union; appeal and fight it in court, running the bill up even higher; or pay the full back wages and benefits and restore as many of the 11 workers as want to return.

If that is the course the Times Union chooses, it could result in an equal number of positions being cut. The company would have to first offer a buyout again. If not enough people take it, layoffs could either be done by reverse order of seniority or by negotiating the criteria for out-of-seniority layoffs.

The Guild met again this week with the company, and again we offered even more compromises on the issue of layoffs. (The session was off the record at our lawyer’s advice.) We have made clear we are willing to give the company a tremendous amount of flexibility while retaining some bargaining rights.

The company’s position, however, remains inflexible. The Hearst Corp. remains uninterested in any settlement that does not give bosses effectively a blank check to lay off whomever they please and outsource whatever work they like without negotiation.

“We did everything in our power to bargain a settlement, but our members have made clear it makes no sense to give up our bargaining rights,” Guild President Tim O’Brien said. “As Chief Steward Brian Nearing says, you cannot put a price on cutting off our tongues and leaving us voiceless.”

Nearing and 1st Vice President Lindsay LaFountain joined O’Brien at the bargaining session.

If the company decides to pay the back wages and restore workers to their jobs without a settlement, employees will continue to work under posted conditions, which means the wage scales remain in effect and cannot be cut. Almost all of the contract continues in place just as it has for the past three years.

The Guild remains open to further discussion on a settlement, but the clock on this case is running out.

There will be a meeting of Local 34’s Executive Board at 5:30 p.m. on Thursday, Feb.9 at the Labor Temple. As always, these meetings are open to the membership. Here is the early agenda for the meeting:

1. Approval of minutes
2. Treasurer’s report
   • Monthly update
3. Committee reports
4. Commission committee
5. Communications committee
   • Newsletter
   • Website
6. Grievances and arbitrations
7. Contract negotiations
8. Solidarity/support for other unions
9. Organizing
10. Retiree advisory committee
11. Pension
12. Old business
    • Guild picnic
13. New business
    • Delegates to the new officers’ seminar March 9-12 in Baltimore
    • Delegates to the TNG multicouncil meeting April 20-23 in Cleveland
    • Guild service award
14. Adjourn

The next scheduled meeting wil be 5:30 p.m. on Thursday, March 8.

In a letter to Publisher George Hearst today, Guild President Tim O’Brien said the union is willing to negotiate a settlement of the case brought by the National Labor Relations Board but that a settlement of the contract and a long-overdue raise should be part of any deal.

“It has been almost five years since your employees received a raise,” O’Brien wrote. “Workers at the Times Union are asked to do more and more with fewer and fewer colleagues to share the workload. Advertising commissions have been slashed, people are struggling to pay medical bills, and some have had to take second jobs to make ends meet.”

Read the letter here.

In his annual letter to employees, Hearst CEO Frank Bennack said the company saw record profits and revenues in 2011. While the union was glad to hear the news, O’Brien wrote, “it also stung to read those words while we here in Albany are being deprived of a raise and contract for, as you put it, too long.”

The reason a settlement has been delayed is the company’s attempt to strip employees of the right to bargain over layoffs and outsourcing.

“The national mood has begun to shift against large companies that sit on record profits and decline to share them with employees,” O’Brien told the publisher. “We have seen in Wisconsin, Ohio and elsewhere across the country the backlash caused by leaders trying to deprive workers of bargaining rights.”

The union has offered unprecedented flexibility in both those areas that still gives employees some say.

“We invite you to join us in compromising,” O’Brien concluded. “When you are ready to discuss a full settlement of all the outstanding issues, please contact us and we will gladly schedule a meeting with you.”

The publisher proposed settling only the case that stems from his decision in 2009 to break the law and illegally lay off 11 workers. The Times Union was found guilty of breaking the law after a hearing in 2010, and that decision was unanimously upheld by the full board  in Washington, D.C. The newspaper has been ordered to pay back wages to the workers, reinstate whoever wishes to return and bargain in good faith over future layoffs.

O’Brien had warned Hearst in 2009 as soon as the layoffs started that they were illegal and told him to stop. The union would have no choice but to file a complaint with the NLRB if the layoffs continued, the publisher was told. Hearst made a choice to continue the illegal layoffs anyway. For more than two years, he has dragged out the case with fruitless appeals. But now the NLRB is taking the Times Union to court to enforce the order.

Both parties agreed Tuesday to allow members to see for the first time what was proposed behind closed doors as the parties tried to settle the contract. This information is being released for communication purposes only and cannot be used by either party in any legal proceeding.

We’re grateful to Publisher George Hearst for agreeing to let you see what the two parties have proposed, and we hope sharing this information will help you see that the Guild has been striving to compromise while protecting our members’ interests.

Here’s how the two proposals break down on the major issues that have been making reaching a settlement difficult.

LAYOFF LANGUAGE

WHAT THE GUILD WANTED: To keep our original language, which required layoffs to be by reverse order of seniority by department.

WHAT THE COMPANY WANTED: To eliminate the union’s right to bargain over layoffs, making everyone vulnerable to a potential layoff no matter how long their service.

WHERE THE GUILD WAS WILLING TO MOVE: The company could use up to 20 “skips” whereby they exempt selected individuals from out of seniority layoffs. We stated that number was meant to be a starting point for a conversation.

WHERE THE COMPANY MOVED: It would bargain over layoffs only after 90 people had been let go over the two-year life of the contract. The company has not laid off that many people in a century. It would wipe out 40 percent of the workforce. This is a move on paper only.

OUTSOURCING

WHAT THE GUILD WANTED: To keep the protections we had that barred the company from outsourcing work if it would displace a staff position.

WHAT THE COMPANY WANTED: To eliminate the union’s right to bargain over outsourcing.

WHERE THE GUILD WAS WILLING TO MOVE: The Guild was willing to accept the language the company imposed in 2009, which requires bargaining over outsourcing but does not ban it.

WHERE THE COMPANY MOVED: The company would negotiate over outsourcing only after 90 jobs were outsourced. Again, this is a move on paper only.

The last written proposal both parties shared was in April 2011. The company declined to meet again for a bargaining session until November. At that session, the union had prepared and offered to make a new comprehensive settlement proposal but the company said it would only listen to a proposal on settling the NLRB case.

Our summary above includes what was verbally said by the Guild to the company about its willingness to move. Our written April proposal called for a $750 bonus on signing and a 2 percent raise on the first anniversary of ratification, which would have been this spring. The company proposed a $1,500 signing bonus with no raise. We proposed the laid-off workers get $50,000 each; the company offered $1,500.

You can read the company’s April 2009 proposal here.

You can read the Guild’s April 2009 proposal here.

The Times Union proposed a settlement offer on the National Labor Relations Board case on the record Friday that would pay pennies to the dollar on what is owed. It also would leave our members without a contract and with significantly less leverage to get one.

The Times Union wants to pay the illegally fired workers $15,000 each and give all our members $1,000. The 11 people laid off illegally in 2009 are owed more than $600,000, the National Labor Relations Board has said. Individual members are owed as much as $109,000.

The company is offering the workers 19 cents on the dollar for a case it lost. This is like a criminal being found guilty in court, losing his appeal and then announcing it’s time to plea bargain for a much shorter sentence.

The proposal would include no recurring raise and would strengthen the company’s hand in demanding members surrender their right to bargain over layoffs and outsourcing.

The company wants Guild members to “share” the cost of its illegal actions. In fact, the Guild told the company immediately in 2009 that the layoffs were illegal even as they were occurring and told the publisher to stop. Instead, the Times Union wasted tens of thousands of dollars on a losing legal appeal.

The money owed to our laid-off colleagues is solely the responsibility of Times Union management and the Hearst Corp.

Offering our members a $1,000 “bribe” to sell out laid-off colleagues is something we cannot accept.

The Guild has repeatedly offered compromises on both layoffs and outsourcing as well as in the NLRB case. Given the company’s decision to make this settlement offer public, the union plans to ask the company’s permission to divulge our off-the-record proposals and theirs for communication purposes only. We think you deserve to see the compromises we offered and what the company offered in return.

You deserve the full story.

When you work on a holiday, you have three options: 1) Be paid 2½ days’ pay; 2) be paid 1 day’s pay and get 1½ days’ makeup time to use later; or 3) take 1½ days’ pay and get 1 day’s makeup time to use later. It is your choice what to take. Just note what you want to do on the bottom of your timeslip.

When a holiday falls on a weekend, as Christmas and New Year’s Day do this year, that day is the holiday. People who work will get holiday pay. People who are off will get a makeup day. You can choose to take it on the day before or after, but the TU will remain open those days.

An employee may substitute Christmas Eve or New Year’s Eve as an optional day off. Employees who work either the eve of the holiday or the holiday or both shall be paid one shift at the holiday rate. Holiday pay rates apply when the shift starts on the holiday, not the eve.

Part-time employees who work more than 28½ hours a week get pro-rated holiday pay.

Employees cannot be required to work more than three holidays a year. Those who choose to do so get a day’s pay or makeup day in addition to normal holiday pay. (The company can give first preference, however, to those who have worked fewer than three holidays.)

Over the years, the holiday-pay language has been added to and amended. The language on holidays falling on weekends was bargained in the 2000 contract, the same year Martin Luther King Jr. Day was added as a floating holiday. In our last talks, we bargained a benefit that allows colleagues to substitute a different religious holiday for Christmas, addressing an issue raised by Jewish and Muslim coworkers. The language is in section 27 of the contract, pages 56-57. Yes, that language, like most of the contract, remains in effect.

If there is a benefit you want explained, email us at office@albanyguild.org.