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Contract Bargaining Back on Track
Bargaining Bulletin #9:
The Albany Newspaper Guild resumed bargaining Wednesday and Thursday for a new contract with the Times Union reaching a tentative agreement on sick leave.
Both sides agreed to short-term disability coverage for members of the Guild unit. Members will no longer have to rely on accumulated sick time or on donations of sick time to cover the six weeks of short-term disability.
Current employees will be able to use accumulated sick time to cover the weeks between the end of short-term and long-term disability to receive their full salaries which would otherwise be 50 percent. The donating of sick time and banking of sick time will end.
The Guild offered counter proposals on outsourcing and job security. These areas led to an impasse being declared during the last round of contract bargaining in 2008-09. The company has not yet responded.
The Guild and Times Union representatives also discussed other topics. Both sides will return to the table on Oct. 12 and Oct 13 to continue negotiations.
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Board Elected
The Albany Newspaper Guild elected a seven-member Executive Board Thursday to serve three-year terms of office.
The new board is composed of President Ken Crowe, Vice President Ty Stewart, Secretary Wendy Liberatore, Treasurer Theresa LaPoint, Chief Steward Rob Gavin, and At-Large Board Members David Johnson and Paul Nelson.
The board members are committed to completing negotiations for a new contract.
“We’ve been fortunate to have an extremely dedicated board for the last three years. The election results guarantee that our local will continue to have strong and involved leadership,” said President Ken Crowe.
“The board’s primary goal continues to be negotiating a new contract for local unit members,” Crowe said.
Crowe, Stewart, LaPoint, Gavin, and Johnson were re-elected to their posts. Liberatore, who was appointed as secretary in August to fill a vacancy, and Nelson won their first elections.
At-Large Board Member Jeff Boyer will leave office at the end of the year
The board takes office Jan. 1, 2023 and serves through Dec. 31, 2025.
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Liberatore appointed Local Secretary
Wendy Liberatore has been appointed unanimously by the local Executive Board as secretary of the Albany Newspaper Guild, Local 31034, TNG-CWA.
Wendy works as a reporter for the Times Union covering Saratoga County.
Wendy has been active as a shop steward, providing advice and serving as a key member of the local’s bargaining team. Wendy completed training in May in Buffalo at the Cornell Industrial Labor Relations School program.
Wendy joins the Executive Board immediately and will serve the remaining months of former local secretary Massarah Mikati, who left to join the Philadelphia Inquirer where she is now a member of the Philadelphia Guild.
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Bargaining is Smooth then Rough
Bargaining Bulletin #8:
The Albany Newspaper Guild and the Times Union reviewed language in tentative agreements on Holidays and Employee Section and the Funeral Leave Section on Tuesday.
The Guild and Company bargaining teams continued to hold extensive discussions on expenses. While the Company wants expenses to be filed within 90 days, the Guild is seeking language that the expenses are paid as soon as possible after being filed.
The Guild had proposed free digital subscriptions being provided to employers. Since the Guild proposed this in June, the Hearst Corp. has extended free access to employees to all newspapers.
Discussion continued about cell phones, reimbursements, equipment and increasing insurance reimbursement for district managers.
Both sides also discussed providing short term disability insurance to Guild members and the status of banked unused sick time.
Bargaining turned away from an easy exchange of positions when the Company presented a written proposal to take the advertising sales force out of the bargaining unit.
Guild President Ken Crowe made it clear that this would not happen. Under federal labor law, the composition of our bargaining unit is not subject to mandatory bargaining. The Guild will not bargain away unit members.
The Advertising Department has been part of the Albany Newspaper Guild since at least the early 1940s. Over the years it has produced some of best presidents — Chris Cunningham and Melissa Nelson. The Guild Executive Board and activists have reached out to all Advertising Department unit members to tell them that we will stand by them and will not abandon them. They recognize the protections of being covered by a union.
The Company was told explicitly that the National Labor Relations Act covers our position, which was reviewed by our lawyer. The Guild gave the Company a letter to substantiate our verbal remarks.
We will stand firm and fight any attempt to attack the composition of our local.
Remember a motto that we have stood by for years — UNITED WE’RE STRONG.
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More Holidays and Expanded Funeral Leave
Bargaining Bulletin #7:
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.
Serving the employees of the Times Union in Albany, New York since 1934.