The Times Union laid off a maintenance employee Monday who worked for the company for five years, but it failed to follow the language the company imposed requiring a buyout to be negotiated and offered to employees before any layoffs occur.

This is especially important because the company is now saying other job cuts may be on the horizon in editorial and other departments.

The language imposed in 2009 states that before any layoffs occur, the company must give the Guild 45 days’ notice and negotiate a buyout offer. The parties bargained a buyout last year, but the company was very clear that while anyone could apply, that buyout was targeted specifically at advertising art/marketing and the Web desk.

“No one in maintenance, editorial, circulation or any other department would have reason to believe they should have applied,” Guild President Tim O’Brien said. “A negotiated buyout is not open-ended. The application period has long since ended. Before any further cuts can occur, a new buyout offer must be bargained. We’ve told the company to reinstate the maintenance worker until that occurs.”

The affected worker was the least senior person in maintenance but had been a loyal, well-regarded employee for five years.

O’Brien and Guild Secretary Mark Hempstead met with Publisher George Hearst last week to discuss issues including rumors of job cuts in editorial. The publisher did not provide specifics about cuts, but said advertising has been down this year. Most of the company’s cost reductions do not involve personnel, he said, but some job losses could be forthcoming soon. He did not set any timeline.

The Guild also discussed the closing of the Troy and Saratoga Springs bureaus. The Guild has no objection but noted the company’s announcement the reporters would become “mobile journalists” working largely in the field is a change in working conditions that requires bargaining. The company is obligated to provide the equipment needed to do the job.

The TU is giving the reporters laptop computers and will pay part of the bill for employees who already have smart phones. The Guild noted two employees do not have smart phones and have been told to share what is now the bureau cell phone.

O’Brien told Hearst it was inadequate to provide one phone to be shared between two reporters who are supposed to be working out of coffee shops and other locations. Hearst agreed and said he would discuss the matter with newsroom editors.

The Guild also discussed recent complaints from members and customers about outsourcing circulation calls to a Pennsylvania company called Telereach.

The union did not object to the switch because its members were moved to making outbound calls to drive up circulation (which has been successful, thanks to their hard work), but Telereach has done such an awful job upset customers have called various employees and even come walking into the plant to cancel their newspaper.

Hearst said the TU is working to remedy the problem. The harsh weather was partly to blame, with carrier turnover exceeding 100 percent. Hearst said calls from people who didn’t get their newspaper tie up two phone lines, one for the incoming call and one for transferring the call to Telereach. The TU is trying to fix that issue, he said.

Guild leaders asked about movement of accounts payable work to San Antonio. Hearst said one member will see a shift in some duties but no member will lose a job

Guild President Tim O’Brien served as a delegate to the Sector Conference of the Guild’s International. He was one of 89 delegates from 36 locals that discussed the state of the industry, the future of the union and ways to keep members connected. Read this report here.

This week, a judge rejected the Times Union’s attempts to further delay an arbitration in the cutting off of the union’s dues, clearing the way for the case to be heard on April 6.

In June, U.S. District Court Judge Gary Sharpe ruled the union had a right to have the case heard by an arbitrator. The Times Union has fought our efforts to allow our case to be heard, but the newpaper continues to lose that battle. After the judge’s ruling, the Times Union filed an appeal and a request for a stay to block the case from going before an arbitrator. This week, the judge rejected the request for further delay.

The union and company have agreed on the name of the arbitrator who will hear the case, and a date has now been scheduled for Wednesday, April 6. Arbitrator James Collins will decide whether the newspaper improperly cut off dues collection. If the union wins, the company would not only have to resume collecting dues out of paychecks. It could be ordered to reimburse the union for any dues not paid.

The Guild also won a legal victory in the illegal layoffs of employees last year. The company, in another delaying tactic, has appealed the case to the full National Labor Relations Board in Washington, D.C. The administrative law judge in the case found the Times Union guilty of violating labor law and ordered the newspaper to return the 12 workers to the payroll, provide them with back pay and resume negotiations, this time in good faith.

“The Guild remains open to ongoing discussion with the company to try to settle these matters,” President Tim O’Brien said. “We’ve shown a great willingness to be flexible on the issues of layoffs and outsourcing, but flexibility must be a two-way street. In this economy, members are understandably reluctant to hand the company a blank check to outsource their jobs or to lay off the most senior people without cause. We have been and remain willing to craft language that enables the company to keep top performers, but the law does not allow the company to impose its draconian demands that we surrender our right to negotiate.”

O’Brien said the union is especially grateful to the Guild International and its lawyers, Barbara Camens and Quinn Philbin, for their excellent work on our behalf.

“The legal process is frustratingly slow, but we are lucky to have such excellent attorneys working for us,” he said. “They continue to compile an impressive collection of legal victories on our behalf. We are in good hands.”

After discussions with the Times Union Tuesday, the Guild made the difficult but unavoidable decision to sign off on settlements for the three workers laid off right after Christmas.

The three employees in the advertising art/marketing area were laid off in reverse order of seniority. The TU let go three of the four workers in the marketing media specialist job title. Because the newspaper eliminated “bumping rights” that would have enabled workers to return to a job they had previously done, one employee was out of a job after 12 years of service to the Times Union.

“Although we do not agree with the decision to lay off these workers, this time the Times Union followed the conditions it imposed,” Guild President Tim O’Brien said.

Last year, the Times Union was found guilty of breaking labor law by an independent hearing officer in its handling of the layoff of 12 employees. The appeal in that case, which the TU is unlikely to win, is pending before the National Labor Relations Board.

This time, the company followed the rules and, to its credit, extended health-care coverage to the workers for the same period of time as their severance. The Guild negotiated Tuesday and convinced the company to also reimburse the employees for the first $750 of the deductible. Since the employees are being made to pay their 21 percent share of health care costs, he noted, they might not get the value of insurance in the first few months of the year if they rang up less than $750 in medical bills. He also noted that the three workers, unlike remaining employees, also won’t have income from their jobs to pay the deductible.

The company agreed. With that, the parties signed off on the layoffs and no legal challenges will result.

“These three guys are not only great workers but they are my good friends,” O’Brien said. “It pains me to see them let go, and I wish there was more we could do. While we wish the Times Union had chosen to keep them employed, we do appreciate the company’s willingness to extend health-care coverage and to reimburse them for the deductible.”

Accepting a promotion can put an employee at greater risk of layoffs.

That was the stunning news embedded in the decision to let go three employees last week in the advertising art/marketing subdepartment. The company said it chose to let go people in the title of marketing media specialist, a Class B title formerly called specialty publications editor. The layoffs were done in reverse order of seniority by job title, the company said.

One of the laid-off employees worked for the company for 12 years but was promoted 2 1/2 years ago from an advertising artist’s job. Accepting that promotion, it turned out, made him more vulnerable to a layoff because there were only four people in the marketing title and three were let go.

When the company posted conditions in 2009, it eliminated language that would have allowed employees targeted for layoff to bump back into a previously held position. Without that language, the 12-year worker could not seek to return to his prior position.

Guild leaders said they were upset at the timing of the company’s decision, laying off people in the week between Christmas and New Year’s.

While the Times Union did offer buyouts in November, it had not specified which titles in ad art/marketing were being targeted. Had the company done so, as it did with district managers, it might have prompted some workers to apply for the buyout.

The Guild calculated, however, that all three workers are receiving a better payout because they waited for the layoff. That’s because they worked more than a month longer, and because a layoff requires the company to provide either nine weeks’ notice or nine weeks’ pay in lieu of notice. For two of the three workers, that 9 weeks’ pay added up to more than the additional week pay for year of service that was included in the buyout.

For the third worker, the buyout would have given 36 weeks’ pay. A layoff will provide 24 weeks’ pay plus the nine weeks of notice pay. While that is three weeks less than the buyout offer, the employee kept his job for more than a month by not accepting the buyout.

“It pains us greatly to see our colleagues laid off, and we think the company will find that this cut is too deep and there are not enough people to do the work,” Guild President Tim O’Brien said. “But even in the worst of times, there is a benefit to having a union. In a non-union workplace, there would be no buyout offers, no guarantee of severance and no 9 weeks’ pay in lieu of notice.”

The Times Union managers said it was likely the newspaper would create fewer specialty publications now. If advertising artists are made to do that work more than 15 hours in a week or more than two full days, they will be entitled to a pay class differential. If the company tries to outsource the work, it would have to be negotiated.

The Times Union is offering to provide health insurance to the laid-off workers for the same number of weeks they would be paid. Guild leaders also said they appreciated the fact the workers were allowed to finish their day and not made to leave the premises immediately, as happened in the 2009 layoffs.

The Guild also asked what the company planned to do with positions on the Web desk. No employees there had applied for buyouts either, though the company again had not been specific about any targeted job titles.

Publisher George Hearst said no final decision has been made on the Web team because a companywide reconfiguration is being developed. O’Brien pointed out that if the Times Union planned to outsource that work to another Hearst operation, that would have to be negotiated.