More Holidays and Expanded Funeral Leave

The Albany Newspaper Guild and the Times Union reached a tentative agreement Wednesday, Aug. 3, 2022, that Guild unit members will receive Presidents Day and Juneteenth off as holidays.

 The Guild agreed that members working on holidays will be paid the normal holiday rate of 2.5 times their pay but that time work can no longer be banked as a future day off.

 In addition, bereavement leave has been expanded to ten days for spouses, significant others, and children. For all other relatives, as outlined in the contract, five days of leave will be permitted. This is an improvement over the three days that had been allowed.

In ongoing negotiating, the company returned to pushing for a management rights clause. The Guild’s initial review was nearly two months ago when the company presented its proposal. At that time, the Guild found the proposal to be greatly overreaching and saw the proposed language as undermining the contract.