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Outsourcing Bargaining Set

The Guild and the Times Union will meet at 3 p.m. Monday, November 14, 2022, to bargain a severance package for Guild unit members on the print (copy) desk whose work is being outsourced to Hearst operations in Houston and Connecticut.

At this time, it’s anticipated two positions will be cut.

The Times Union appears to be one of the last newspapers in the country to outsource its page design work. Earlier this year, the Buffalo News sent its work to the Lee Newspapers design center. The Buffalo Guild bargained over that in its last round of contract talks.
Our editorial members were told about the outsourcing Thursday afternoon. Guild leaders announce bargaining would take place Monday.

At the same time, the San Francisco Chronicle was telling its Guild-represented employees that they were facing the same development. San Francisco will make the switch to the central design hub in January. Albany will do it on April 15.

Our local has gone through outsourcing before in the Advertising, Business, and Circulation Departments. It’s never easy to deal with these developments. It’s very hard on our colleagues who will be losing their jobs. Everyone has received severance packages.

The Albany Newspaper Guild will continue its lobbying efforts to obtain tax breaks for newspapers for their local employees in New York State. The NYS AFL-CIO is assisting us in this effort to keep local newspaper jobs. The New York News Publishers Association also is participating. We’ve already met with Gov. Kathy Hochul’s finance staff on this topic in an effort to include it in next year’s state budget.

At the bargaining table Monday for our local will be President Ken Crowe, Secretary Wendy Liberatore, and At-Large Board Member David Johnson.

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