EXTRA, EXTRA READ ALL ABOUT THE NEWSIES STRUGGLE FOR FAIR DEAL AT THE TIMES UNION

People at Proctor’s Theater in Schenectady who attended Saturday’s North American premier of the touring production of Newies _ a musical based on a newsboys’ strike more than a century ago _ got a chance to hear about the real “newsies” at the Times Union.

Guild members handed out the leaflets that you can see on the previous post, which describe how hard-working families at the TU have had their wages frozen for seven years as the company refuses to negotiate a fair contract.

Hundreds of flyers were distributed and people seemed genuinely interested in learning about the situation, with some expressing surprise that wages had been frozen for so long.

Visitors to “Newsies” today got to read all about how Times Union employees have gone 7 years without a raise.

Sometimes, helping someone can be as simple as picking up the phone. The members of the Albany Newspaper Guild believe that this is one of those times…

As those who have been following our situation know, the hard-working families at the Times Union have endured a wage freeze for seven long years. This has gone on as the number of jobs have been reduced, leaving fewer people to handle an increasing amount of work.

Attempts to reach a compromise settlement appear to be stalled. The company will offer only paltry one-shot payments in exchange for the union forfeiting any control on outsourcing jobs and seniority in layoffs. This is unacceptable, and would be to any union in the Capital Region.

Only public opinion appears to have a possibility of inducing a change in this stance by the Hearst Corp. After all, as the voice of our community and its standards, the Times Union itself reproached Gov. Andrew Cuomo when he froze the wages of state management confidential workers for five years, saying it was unfair to heap such a burden on the backs of working families. Should a different standard apply within the walls of the Times Union itself? The Guild thinks not…

If you agree, please share this post on your Facebook and Twitter accounts, and pick up the phone, call the number in the photograph _ 454-5555 _ and say so.

In an initial discussion Wednesday about health care costs for 2015, the Company proposed eliminating the composite rate for insurance over the next three years.

The result would be a decrease in costs to single employees and a large increase of costs for employees with family coverage. Empire Blue Cross would continue to be the health care provider, and the dental plan would also remain the same.

Health-care coverage will be discussed at the union’s monthly Executive Board meeting at 5:30 p.m. Tuesday at the union office in the Albany Labor Temple. Members are welcome to attend.

Employees now pay $49.02 a week for health care. In the first year of the Company’s proposal, that would drop to $45.22 for singles, increase to $53.09 a week for two people, and rise to $60.67 for family coverage.

The Company also presented figures for the other two years of the phase-in, but those numbers assumed health-care costs otherwise remaining flat. In the second year, singles would pay $34.80, coverage for two would cost $50.79 and a family plan would cost $66.16.

In the third year, when the composite rate would be completely eliminated, the cost would be $24.69 for singles, $48.54 for two people and $71.49 for a family.

For employees with families, that would mean a 46 percent increase in costs over three years or an added $1,168.44 for a year. Again, those calculations do not include any rise in health-care costs, meaning the actual increase would likely be larger.

The Company says it is seeking this shift to avoid paying an excise tax scheduled to take effect in 2018 under the Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare. Under the law, the Company said, a 40 percent tax would be imposed on the portion of most employer-sponsored health coverage that exceeds $10,200 a year for singles and $27,500 for families. For 2015, the composite rate would be $12,510.90.

Of course, this assumes the penalty takes effect in 2018. A new president will be in office by then, and Congress or the new leader could decide to delay or halt that provision of the law.

Information presented by the Company Wednesday showed the biggest drop among union-covered participants in the plan has been among singles. The number of singles taking the Company’s insurance dropped from 47 to 34 in the past year. The number of couples dropped from 52 to 50, and the number of family plans dropped from 88 to 85.

The composite rate has existed for decades. The system means singles carry some of the burden for others, though many have been fine with that over the years because they expected to one day become part of a couple or have children. And, of course, as with any health insurance, the healthy subsidize the sick so that a family enjoying good health could cost less on health care than a single facing an illness.

Without the attempt to phase out the composite rate, the Company said the year-over-year increase would be 3.6 percent. The health-care increase would have been flat, the Company said, if the number of singles on the plan had not dropped.

Guild President Tim O’Brien and Secretary Mark Hempstead listened to the presentation, along with leaders of other unions in the plant. Questions were asked, but the Guild leaders said they would take the information, study it, seek advice from our International and gather input from our members before responding.

We have attached all the documents we were given today if anyone cares to look for themselves: 2014-10-01 Health Insurance 2015

More than a month after the Guild presented a comprehensive offer to settle the contract, Publisher George Hearst showed up Monday with his own ‘proposal.’

Employees would give up the right to any say in who gets laid off and what work gets outsourced, and they would receive a $500 bonus upon ratification and another $500 to be paid on August 1, 2010.

No, we didn’t get the date wrong. The publisher walked in the door, said his offer from 2009 still stands, and didn’t even bother to update his wage offer.  He did not propose any raises for Times Union workers, who have gone without a pay increase for more than seven years.

The union made a comprehensive settlement proposal on July 31.

As a refresher, here is what we proposed:

WAGES: A 2 percent raise retroactive to August 1, 2010; 2.5 percent raises effective August 1, 2014; August 1, 2015, August 1, 2016; and August 1, 2017.

OUTSOURCING: Our proposal says the Company would have to negotiate over any outsourcing, as it has to do under the imposed conditions.

LAYOFFS. The Company could lay off employees out of seniority, but those workers would get enhanced severance. If the Company tried to take away the added severance, it would also lose the language allowing out-of-seniority layoffs.

As we see it, we have three options for a response we will outline at this meeting:

Membership meeting
12:30 p.m. Wednesday, September 24,
at the Colonie Town Library