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The Guild is All Over Albany

There is quite a discussion going on at the excellent local blog, All Over Albany. You can read it here.

5 Comments

  • Worried

    Several of those AOA users have a good point. http://alloveralbany.com/archive/2009/05/27/newspaper-guild-urges-people-to-cancel-tu#comment-20315

    Please, please ALbany Guild, let this go. Stop the attacks. Stop the highway message boards. Stop the radio commercials. Don’t take the TU down. Because when you do, no one will have a job.

    Some of us have kids who are comfortable in area schools, families who have established a life and spouses with jobs they love. Kill the paper and we’ll have no choice but to leave the area.

    • albanyguild

      Tim O’Brien here. I don’t know what department you work in, Worried, but I’d gladly take you around and introduce you to folks who are equally worried. Unlike you, based on your earlier posts, they are not gung-ho to eliminate all seniority protections. They understand that while enabling the Company to make some exceptions as the Guild has proposed makes sense, letting them lay off longtime employees who are near 55 would mean pensions cut in half.

      You’d also meet folks who are ‘worried’ that if the Company gets the ability to outsource jobs, their established lives will be torn apart and they will be forced to move and their kids will have to leave their schools. So when you say ‘Let this go,’ you really seem to be saying: I think I personally will be safe if the seniority language is gone, but I really don’t care if older workers who’ve been here far longer lose their pension or if entire subdepartments are outsourced and people are laid off. You can’t say “Take action to preserve my job” in one breath and “I don’t care if other people lose their jobs” in the next.

      No one is trying to kill the TU. We’ve collected the cancellation notices but have not delivered them and won’t unless the Company declares impasse and tries to force this language down our throats. The company canceled our contract and is threatening us with impasse to gain leverage. We cannot fight back with both hands and a foot tied behind our backs.

      And finally, I have two kids who love their schools. My family has an established life. My wife does not have a steady full-time job but does some work. Half the bargaining committee and 5 of 7 Executive Board members have kids. Many of the district managers, artists, marketing workers and others whose livelihoods are threatened by the outsourcing language have children, families and lives. (And people who are unmarried or don’t have kids have their own needs: Elderly parents to care for, their own health-care issues, student loans, whatever the case may be. Having children or a spouse, and I am grateful to have both, doesn’t make your needs necessarily more or less important than others’.) I wish I knew who you were because I’d introduce you to other folks who are ‘worried’ and expand your world view. You’ll hear from them at the vote. It should be a real eye opener for you.

  • Worker Ant

    Worried,
    The company can end these “attacks”, highway message boards and radio commercials anytime they want. All they need to do is negotiate with the Guild in good faith and offer us a FAIR contract. It’s that simple.

  • Realistic

    With the language the company proposes,your Kids won’t need to change schools this year- but in the future, you won’t be sending them to colledge from here.

  • JiNX-01

    What you should be worried about, Worried, is the danger — yes, DANGER, that the company’s proposal will be approved. You should be losing sleep over the mere possibility. And here’s why:

    You are NOT a cheap date. None of us are.

    We cost the company money even when we’re not working. We cost the company money in health insurance, weekly pension contributions, social security and medicare payroll taxes, paid vacations, holiday pay, overtime, and expenses like mileage.
    Not to mention those pesky arbitrations …

    Think how much cheaper it would be to hire commission only independent contractors in advertising sales. Free-lancers in editorial who make $50 a story. No health insurance, no pensions, no paid holidays, no paid vacations…

    The company isn’t canceling our contract and threatening impasse and facing the anger of the publid because it wants the layoff and outsourcing language changed just in case… The Hearst Corp. fully intends to put that language to extensive use.

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