Guild bargainer Stacy Wood proved an articulate advocate for her colleagues in advertising Monday.

During contract talks, Wood responded to George Hearst’s comments that the industry is changing and his questions about whether the publisher has successfully communicated about the challenges the newspaper faces. Wood replied that ad sales people especially understand what is happening, but the Company’s response to the economic slowdown and industry changes has been to target the staff.

“Management’s style has been punitive. Morale has taken a nosedive,” Wood said. “The outrageous goals with no hope of making them and if you don’t make them, you’re shown the door. We want to be here. We are spending more and more of our time trying to fix the problems that are coming up. It’s not that we’re not into the program. We just want to be treated better. And that’s not going to cost you a penny to do. We want some respect for the work that we do. I think if the tone were to change, the morale problem would turn around.”

Guild President Tim O’Brien mentioned the public display of boards that rank ad sales people and list who have not reached their goals. He called it a “public paddling” that was not motivational. Hearst brought up the board the Guild put up in response, ranking managers in general in how they were motivating staff but not listing any names. Company managers, not catching the irony, were outraged. They not only demanded the board come down. They removed it first without discussing it with the Guild. (The union agreed to keep the board down and urged management to show similar compassion by removing its own board. Instead a second one was put up in classified.)

The Company has articulated that these are tough times in the newspaper industry, O’Brien said. What it hasn’t made clear is that its leaders know how to help sales staff navigate through these rough waters.

“It’s not the sense of being on a team. It’s more like you’re rowing the boat and someone is standing over you with a whip,” O’Brien said.

That was the Company’s reaction to the Web video where members voiced their concern about the Company’s proposal to be able to change employees’ days off without consent at any time — even to force people to work split days off.

Associate Publisher George Hearst said he and Publisher Mark Aldam watched the video. Their response was to ask if the Company had failed to communicate the current state of the industry and how it is affecting the Times Union.

Guild bargainer Mary Fultz asked what forcing people to split days off or allowing their days off to be changed without consent had to do with the state of the industry. “This isn’t McDonald’s,” she said.

“You’re asking us to give up a structure that gives a more professional environment,” Fultz said.

“The enterprise needs to be flexible,” Hearst replied. He said it wouldn’t make sense for managers to penalize people by switching their days off in a way that was harmful to their family life. Guild bargainers replied the Company was seeking way too much power over workers’ lives, and some of its managers would abuse the language if given free rein.

“Flexibility is nice, but where is our flexibility?” Fultz asked.

Bargainer John DeMania noted the language already says days off can be changed without consent if it is necessary for publication.

The Company said the issue arose when two long-time librarians were forced to work weekend days after several decades of service by each to the Company. The Guild filed a grievance, which the parties settled on the verge of going to arbitration. The librarians were moved back to a Monday to Friday schedule, and both of them took the recent buyout.

The Company cited this as a “roadblock” to implementing change and claimed the librarians “were discomforted by the fact that the businsess had changed.” Guild President Tim O’Brien said the librarians were given little to no work to do that had anything to do with producing the next day’s newspaper. He said the Company’s fantasy of why the librarians were needed on weekends did not match the reality of what they were doing.

Hearst replied it may have been true there was insufficient work for the librarians on weekends, but they should have seen the workplace would eventually “evolve” to justify the shift of their schedules. O’Brien said the Company should have a clear need for people to work weekends before assigning them to do so.

Advertising employee Patti Reynolds hasn’t taken a sick day in 22 years.

It’s not that she hasn’t been ill. She’s come to work with everything from a sinus infection to a broken toe (not to mention Montezuma’s revenge!)

“I always felt it was important to get to work if at all possible because I never knew when I would really need the time,” Reynolds told bargainers from both sides. “It was always in the back of my mind that the time would come when I would catch the big one or the dreaded ‘C’ would come knocking on my door.”

She did that, she said, because she knew the Times Union had a policy of allowing seriously ill employees to recapture unused back sick time — a policy the Company has said it may propose to end. Reynolds articulated why the policy serves both employees and the Company well and should not be abandoned.

“I am not alone. There are many employees who have perfect attendance or who have used very little sick time for these same reasons,” she said. “It has come to my attention this company is considering abolishing the ‘banked sick time’ policy. I can’t imagine what that would accomplish. If anything, I can only imagine all the additional sick days employees would now take.”

Bargaining Committee member Stacy Wood, who was out of work for months after a car accident, said: “It was vital to me to be able to go back and take that time.”

The union members also advocated for the Guild’s proposal to allow workers to donate a portion of their sick time to a seriously ill colleague. Wood noted all the people in advertising who have battled cancer, and Guild President Tim O’Brien and committee member Mary Fultz added names from downstairs.

Chris Benoit of advertising said he would love the chance to help a seriously ill colleague by donating some of his time. The Guild proposal would cap the contribution at 30 percent of sick time so no employee would be left without sick leave should he or she become ill.

Associate Publisher George Hearst said he appreciated the remarks. “We respect what you’re saying, and we will take that into consideration,” he said.

The parties reached an agreement today on the newsroom reorganization plan dubbed Prometheus.

For more than 20 Guild members, it will mean a boost in pay. The Guild also preserved two longstanding union positions, the assistant photo editor and the deputy design editor, that the Company had sought to turn into exempt jobs.

There will be eight team leader positions that are exempt, a concession on the union’s part. The Guild had first sought to make the jobs union-covered, with those currently exempt able to remain so as long as they stayed in those positions.

“We still believe the newspaper is top-heavy with management, and that will continue to be a topic in our ongoing contract negotiations,” Guild President Tim O’Brien said. “By making all the Content Editor and Page Designer positions Class A, however, we will see a significant increase in people paid in the top tier rather than the virtual elimination the Company had first proposed.”

The Company had originally proposed those positions as Class B. The move from Class A to Class B will mean a $13.99 raise each week for about 20 workers. Page Designer Artists will move  up from Class C to Class B, a boost of more than $25 a week under the current contract.

The agreement also eliminates seven exempt titles from the contract, some of which are empty and others which will become team leader positions. Besides that title, there will be two other new exempt titles: Systems Editor and Senior Editor/News and Information Service Desk, which are being filled by current exempts.

Seven other exempt titles will be changed.

The agreement also stipulates that the changes will require new duties and skills, and the Company will take that into consideration in evaluating employee performance during the initial implementation.

Guild members came to the table Tuesday to stake their claim to the future of newspaper jobs.

An impressive number of staffers from advertising art joined the session in support of the Guild’s proposal on video on the Web. As part of that proposal, the union argued the advertising art staff should get the same training their newsroom counterparts receive. As the publisher has said in his recent town meetings, the Internet will become a larger and larger part of what we do.

Advertisers are seeking Web video that will enable them to place a video commercial on the newspaper’s Web site. If such videos are to be done, the Guild said, workers in advertising art want to do them and are eager to be trained. This would not only give the Company more control over the product than using an outside contractor, it would enable the Times Union to offer a consistent look to the various products it offers customers now: print and online ads, direct-mail appeals and other products.

“It’s a matter of efficiency,” said Advertising Artist Bill Blais. “Some folks have gotten their feet wet already with video post-production. Graphic artists are the right folks to prepare advertising video.”

Artist Linda Pinkans said she and her colleagues recognize this is the work of the future, and they want to do it.

“We all have an interest to further our careers,” she said.

General Manager George Hearst said it was “inspiring” to hear from the staff that they want to embrace this work.

“The Times Union takes the position that education is the cornerstone of our business,” he said. “You guys are focused on the right stuff.”

Photographers Skip Dickstein and Paul Buckowski also came to the table to discuss the Guild’s proposal. While the Guild would agree to let reporters and photographers both shoot video, the union made clear this did not replace the need for professionally trained and experienced photographers.

But the photographers also addressed the Company’s proposal to eliminate the bar on using reporters regularly as photographers and photographers regularly as reporters.

In the Internet age, the quality of photographs will be more important than ever, Dickstein and Buckowski said.

“When we get our new presses, any image that goes on that page is going to have to be high quality,” Dickstein said. As with a high-definition TV, any flaws will show. “The thing we bring that helps the Times Union brand is the quality we bring,” Buckowski said. “If you look at the photographs out of Saratoga, no one beats the images Skip brings. I don’t think you should look at it as: ‘We can send a reporter who can do the story, shoot the video and we’ll pull a still (photograph) from there.’ “

The result would be a poor story, shaky video and a weak photo, he said: “It’s not just images but great images that are going to keep people looking.”

Company officials said they might want to create a position of a “mojo” journalist who would be expected to do all of those things well, but they said they expected the need for professional photographers to remain.

Peter Rahbar, the Company’s attorney, said the final agreement on the issue might be a “hybrid” of the Company’s proposal to eliminate the prohibition on using reporters regularly to shoot photographs and the Guild’s proposal on Web video. The Guild responded that the Web video language did not require altering the longstanding language that recognizes that photography and reporting require different skill sets.