“Are you serious!?!” asked a visitor to the Times Union-sponsored Home Show Saturday after reading our latest bulletin on how we’ve gone seven years without a raise.

The bulletin focused on the “timesunionMINUS” program. It discussed how rising costs and stagnant wages are making employees lose money year over year.

A special thanks to Luke Carleo for braving the cold to join his dad as we handed out our bulletins.

A couple who own a business sent this heartfelt letter to Publisher George Hearst. We are sharing it with their permission.

Dear Mr. Hearst,

 

We lived and worked in Albany until buying land and starting a small vineyard/winery near Ithaca NY in 1982. Thus we have been following the Albany Newspaper Guild discussions about salary, seniority and outsourcing issues.

 

We hope you can resolve this satisfactorily for all because the TU is a respected newspaper and probably wants to continue to be so. But to respect an employer and thus do an exemplary job for that employer, employees need to be valued – paid well and be reasonably secure in their jobs – if they are doing the job they were hired to do. From articles we read in the TU we believe that your current staff reporters care about what they do and have insight that comes from experience.

 

The editor of a weekly group of papers here (Finger Lakes Community Newspapers) recently told me that she has more staff than the daily Ithaca Journal. That Gannett paper ‘let go’ local reporters who covered local news—to ‘save money’. Now the IJ draws its news from other sources (and we can get that anywhere these days) and is paying the price of lack of respect (thus readership) and fewer ads. So they’ve lost money!

 

The FLCN editor points out that the FL Community Newspapers is thriving because they have enough senior staff reporters who live in and love their community so consistently provide dependable coverage of local news – as well as selected news from beyond. People want to read ‘local news’ thus advertisers can target local customers. When outsourcing provides inconsistent, superficial and scant local reporting readership and ad revenue suffer.

 

You have a difficult ‘road to travel’ needing knowledgeable reporters to cover not only local tri-city news but also our amazing State Government. So we look to you to continue a high level of consistent reporting and hope you are seriously listening to the needs of your senior reporters. They have given the better part of their lives to make the Albany Times Union a leader.

 

People are our most valuable asset in our businesses.

 

Yours truly,
Jim and Carol Doolittle

As many people now know, the Times Union has begun charging for access to its premium, locally-created stories and other content under a program called TU Plus.

At as little as $1 a week for digital-only access, TU Plus is a great value, and the Guild fully embraces this effort to support the quality journalism produced at the Times Union each and every day.

But the Guild also wants the community to remember, at a time when the Times Union is asking its readers for greater financial support, that the workers who make the Times Union what it is have gone for seven years _ and counting _ under a wage freeze.

The freeze stems from the company’s insistence that the Guild surrender seniority and outsourcing rights in exchange for a very modest one-shot payment, but no raise in annual salary. The Guild has declined to submit to this.

With wages frozen, the average TU family has seen their standard of living drop by about 20 percent during this time as the cost of living continues to increase.

So if the owners of the Times Union really believe in TU Plus, they need to apply it not only to their readers, also to the people who are working harder than ever at the newspaper to create the stories, shoot the photographs, create graphics and advertising copy, sell the ads, and deliver the product.

Please call Publisher George Hearst at 454.5555 and urge him to apply TU Plus to the people who work here.

Please fill out our survey!

It’s a quick one with only eight questions. Please complete the survey by Friday, January 23. It asks what kind of actions you’d support and how best to let you know about what we’re doing.

We prefer people complete it online because the website we use will tabulate results for us. If you don’t have access to a computer, or would prefer a paper version, see one of the Guild officers to get a copy or email us at office@albanyguild.org and we’ll send it to you.

The Disney on Ice show based on the wildly popular “Frozen” is appearing at the Times Union Center through Sunday. And the Albany Newspaper Guild is using this occasion to remind Capital Region residents that something else has been frozen _ the wages for families who work for the Albany Times Union.

Wages have been frozen at the paper for seven years and counting, with no sign of a thaw. For this period, the company has repeatedly offered one-time cash _ but no raise in salary _ in return for the union handing over all rights over outsourcing of jobs and seniority job protections _ twin demands that union leadership and its members view as leading to the ultimate destruction of this 80-year organization.

During this freeze, hard-working Times Union families have seen their standard of living decline by roughly 20 percent, when cost of living increases are combined with increasing bills for health insurance. Families are cutting back and cutting back to try to keep up. But this cannot go on forever…

During this season of compassion and empathy for others, the Guild is asking that people call up Times Union Publisher George Hearst at 454.5555 and tell him that the freeze has gone on long enough. It is time to fairly compensate the people who write, illustrate, deliver and sell the ads _ all of whom help make Times Union the important community voice that it is.