Rex Babin, who served as the Times Union editorial cartoonist from 1989 to 1999, died Friday at age 49 after a two-year battle with cancer.

For the past 13 years, Babin was the cartoonist for the Sacramento Bee. While at the Bee, he was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in 2003. He was also a past president of the Association of American Editorial Cartoonists.

At the Times Union, Babin succeeded Hy Rosen as cartoonist. Rosen, an expert caricaturist, belonged to an earlier era of cartooning, when the panels were thick with commentary. Babin strived to put as few words as possible into his cartoons.

“Rex signaled a transition,” said current cartoonist John De Rosier, who followed Babin into the role. “He brought editorial cartooning at this newspaper into its contemporary form. He has a legacy here, and he had an impact.”

Babin is survived by his wife, Kathleen, and son, Sebastian, 10. The Bee is setting up a trust fund for his son. Checks should be made out to Sebastian Babin and can be sent to:

Pam Dinsmore
Community Affairs Director
The Sacramento Bee
2100 Q St
Sacramento CA 95816-6899

For more about Babin’s career, read the Times Union obituary written by Guild president Tim O’Brien or visit The Sacramento Bee’s coverage.

Guild leaders and members met Tuesday with the company to discuss its plans to use a Hearst-owned company, Local Edge, to sell advertising into the newspaper.

Local Edge used to sell ads into the Talking Phone Book, which no longer exists, and Publisher George Hearst said the aim is to try to keep that revenue. He said the firm, which is on Wolf Road, will sell print, digital and search engine optimization ads, all work our employees do. They will have access to Salesforce, the same tool used by ad sales staff to schedule appointments.

Naturally, the union was concerned about the potential of losing the work or the commission revenue.

Under the imposed conditions, the company must negotiate over outsourcing if it would replace or displace an existing staff position. Hearst said it would not. There are currently vacant positions in SEO sales.

Local Edge employs 10 people including eight salespersons.

Hearst said the firm is largely focused on selling in the northern part of the market in Saratoga County. He said they had 275 active advertisers who bought into the now-defunct phone book, only 20 to 25 of which were also TU clients. Those who already work with TU salespeople would stay with TU sales staff, he said.

Rick Barber, one of the members attending the meeting, told Hearst of a disturbing situation involving a Local Edge salesperson and one of Rick’s clients. The salesperson arrived unannounced, interrupted a business owner during a meeting after being told she was occupied, and then shouted “You are rude!” at the owner when told to make an appointment. Barber had to do damage control on an account he worked hard to sustain.

The business cards for Local Edge workers identify them as working for “Hearst Media Services in conjunction with the Times Union.” But the key words a potential customer will hear is that the person is a Times Union representative, and Guild members worry about the potential impact on the value of the brand they helped to build.

Guild leaders said they worried about potential issues with the professionalism and high turnover of salespeople common in these kinds of firms.

Guild Vice President Lindsay LaFountain asked if the Times Union would get credit for revenue. Under the company’s plan, the Local Edge salespeople could call on any account that a Times Union salesperson had not contacted in 30 days.

LaFountain said a TU salesperson might know that a customer usually buys $10,000 in ads a year, while a Local Edge person could not know that and book a $1,000 ad and consider it an accomplishment.

“It’s going to be an ongoing management challenge. Members of that group will be held accountable to goals,” Hearst said. “If it doesn’t prove to be a successful venture, we’ll have to reconsider.”

Managers at the Times Union will be actively involved in these blended sales efforts, Hearst said.

Hearst said the Local Edge staff will start selling inactive accounts at month’s end. Asked by LaFountain who would design any print ads sold, Hearst replied that the Times Union’s advertising art staff would do so.

Guild members at the meeting, which also included President Tim O’Brien and salesperson Linda Rocke, thanked Hearst for his time. The union, as always, is reviewing the information and welcomes input from sales staff about any concerns or questions they may have.

Decades of hard work have earned Guild members benefits that matter. Vacation scheduling protections are just one of them.

When obtained: The current vacation scheduling language by and large first appeared in the 1970-73 contract. In between the 2000 and 2004 contracts, the parties agreed to move the dates earlier after some members had trouble booking vacations when they didn’t know what weeks they would have off until May.

How it works: By February 15, the Company must notify all employees of the amount of vacation they are entitled to. Ten days later, employees must tell the Company in writing of their preferred weeks off. If an employee fails to do so, the Company can assign the time. Selection is based on seniority. After everyone has selected their first two weeks, the schedule is open again on a seniority basis. By March 5, the Company must post what weeks you will get. Please let us know if a supervisor fails to do so. The Company and employee can mutually agree to change assigned vacation time. In an emergency, the Company can change an employee’s vacation on two weeks’ notice.

Where to find: Section 16.B, inside cover of contract. The information on Page 36-37 has the incorrect (original) dates but is otherwise accurate.
Got a benefit you want explained? E-mail the Guild at office@albanyguild.org.

The debt owed to the 11 workers illegally laid off by the Times Union in 2009 has now grown to $750,000.

It has grown by $150,000 since September, and it continues to grow especially with compounded daily interest being charged. In 2010, after a hearing, an administrative law judge ruled the Times Union broke the law in laying off the 11 and again in declaring impasse in those talks.

The company appealed that decision to the full board in Washington, D.C., which unanimously upheld the decision that the TU broke the law.

Now that the NLRB is taking the company to court to enforce its order, the newspaper can settle with the union; appeal and fight it in court, running the bill up even higher; or pay the full back wages and benefits and restore as many of the 11 workers as want to return.

If that is the course the Times Union chooses, it could result in an equal number of positions being cut. The company would have to first offer a buyout again. If not enough people take it, layoffs could either be done by reverse order of seniority or by negotiating the criteria for out-of-seniority layoffs.

The Guild met again this week with the company, and again we offered even more compromises on the issue of layoffs. (The session was off the record at our lawyer’s advice.) We have made clear we are willing to give the company a tremendous amount of flexibility while retaining some bargaining rights.

The company’s position, however, remains inflexible. The Hearst Corp. remains uninterested in any settlement that does not give bosses effectively a blank check to lay off whomever they please and outsource whatever work they like without negotiation.

“We did everything in our power to bargain a settlement, but our members have made clear it makes no sense to give up our bargaining rights,” Guild President Tim O’Brien said. “As Chief Steward Brian Nearing says, you cannot put a price on cutting off our tongues and leaving us voiceless.”

Nearing and 1st Vice President Lindsay LaFountain joined O’Brien at the bargaining session.

If the company decides to pay the back wages and restore workers to their jobs without a settlement, employees will continue to work under posted conditions, which means the wage scales remain in effect and cannot be cut. Almost all of the contract continues in place just as it has for the past three years.

The Guild remains open to further discussion on a settlement, but the clock on this case is running out.

In a letter to Publisher George Hearst today, Guild President Tim O’Brien said the union is willing to negotiate a settlement of the case brought by the National Labor Relations Board but that a settlement of the contract and a long-overdue raise should be part of any deal.

“It has been almost five years since your employees received a raise,” O’Brien wrote. “Workers at the Times Union are asked to do more and more with fewer and fewer colleagues to share the workload. Advertising commissions have been slashed, people are struggling to pay medical bills, and some have had to take second jobs to make ends meet.”

Read the letter here.

In his annual letter to employees, Hearst CEO Frank Bennack said the company saw record profits and revenues in 2011. While the union was glad to hear the news, O’Brien wrote, “it also stung to read those words while we here in Albany are being deprived of a raise and contract for, as you put it, too long.”

The reason a settlement has been delayed is the company’s attempt to strip employees of the right to bargain over layoffs and outsourcing.

“The national mood has begun to shift against large companies that sit on record profits and decline to share them with employees,” O’Brien told the publisher. “We have seen in Wisconsin, Ohio and elsewhere across the country the backlash caused by leaders trying to deprive workers of bargaining rights.”

The union has offered unprecedented flexibility in both those areas that still gives employees some say.

“We invite you to join us in compromising,” O’Brien concluded. “When you are ready to discuss a full settlement of all the outstanding issues, please contact us and we will gladly schedule a meeting with you.”

The publisher proposed settling only the case that stems from his decision in 2009 to break the law and illegally lay off 11 workers. The Times Union was found guilty of breaking the law after a hearing in 2010, and that decision was unanimously upheld by the full board  in Washington, D.C. The newspaper has been ordered to pay back wages to the workers, reinstate whoever wishes to return and bargain in good faith over future layoffs.

O’Brien had warned Hearst in 2009 as soon as the layoffs started that they were illegal and told him to stop. The union would have no choice but to file a complaint with the NLRB if the layoffs continued, the publisher was told. Hearst made a choice to continue the illegal layoffs anyway. For more than two years, he has dragged out the case with fruitless appeals. But now the NLRB is taking the Times Union to court to enforce the order.