The Guild is continuing its buyout talks with the Times Union over jobs in editorial online, advertising art/marketing and the district managers in circulation.

Late Monday, the company responded to our proposal with a new one of their own: Three weeks of severance per year of service with a minimum of 12 weeks and a maximum of 52.  Health insurance would be for the same time period.

Our committee — Guild President Tim O’Brien and members Marianne Mahr, John Michaels and Tim Neff — met Tuesday afternoon and provided a counter to the company. We made three changes: We raised the minimum to 21 weeks. (We had originally proposed 26.) We eliminated the maximum, because it would apply to very few people, perhaps only one person, and we added the phrase “or fraction thereof” next to years of service.

What that means is that if someone works half of a year or three quarters of a year, they would get credit for the full year.

That proposal is now in the hands of the company, and we are awaiting a reply. The parties are scheduled to meet Tuesday.

Once a buyout offer is finalized, we will get details on when people would have to apply, etc., and share those with you. Once the deadline is over and any buyouts are accepted, we would then see whether the company is satisfied with the number it gets or whether the TU then wants to turn to layoff negotiations. At that time, we would expect to continue our discussions about the work being outsourced.

Guild Executive Board members are working on a new effort to encourage members to keep paying their dues.

At its September 9 meeting, the board discussed a sudden dropoff in dues that occurred in August. It was not entirely unusual: Dues dropped off in August last year too as people on vacation delayed their payments to the fall.

At last week’s membership meeting, there was some discussion about how many members were current. While only 72 people of 195 employees covered by the Guild were mentioned as current – and that’s the number that triggered the board’s discussion – that number is not an accurate gauge of member support.

For example, 21 members were only a single month behind. They had consistently paid dues since our automatic payroll deduction was cut off in April 2009. Many of the union’s most active members are among those 21 people, including two who are now on the Executive Board. (They paid their dues after the date the list was compiled and in time for the election.)

Another seven members were only two months’ behind. They also included activists (and one of them had just e-mailed the union to ask how much she owed again in order to pay the bill.)

Eight people were only three months’ behind. Some of those members paid their dues at the membership meeting.

Another half dozen people have come to the union and explained (sometimes in painful detail) the financial struggles they are facing with medical and other bills, or layoffs in their family, and have assured our leaders they still support the Guild but find the dues payment to be one they can delay. People who are not current on dues cannot attend meetings or vote in elections.

The Guild fairly regularly has people skip payments for a month or two and then catch up. A single number can be misleading.

Nevertheless, the board made it a priority to reach out to those who have not paid their dues. At the September 9 meeting, after seeing the summer dropoff, the Executive Board made plans to recruit volunteers to talk to members one on one who are behind. We are looking for about 10 people who are willing to chat with their colleagues.

If you are willing to do so, please contact the Guild office at 482-9218 or by e-mail at office@albanyguild.org. If you are behind in your dues payment and want to develop a repayment plan spread over several months, Guild Treasurer Dan Roesser will help make arrangements. Your privacy will be respected.

The union also is pursuing a legal case about the cutoff of our dues collection, which we believe was illegal. We sought to take the issue to an independent arbitrator for a decision, and the Times Union refused. We filed a lawsuit in U.S. District Court, and this summer Judge Gary Sharpe ordered the newspaper to allow the case to go to arbitration.

The TU responded by seeking a stay of the judge’s order while it appeals. Our lawyers advise us such a stay is highly unlikely. Within months, or less, we should receive news. If the stay is denied, we will immediately seek to go to arbitration. Selecting an arbitrator, holding a hearing and getting a decision would take several months.

In Providence, Rhode Island, the Guild faced a similar situation. The company declared impasse, cut off dues and the union filed suit. The Providence local won, and its dues collection was restored. The company had to pay all the back dues. To be fair to those who had consistently paid, the local gave a 50 percent refund to everyone who had remained current and required members who had been in arrears to pay half of what they owed.

At the end of a day when workers passionately explained why proposed cuts would hurt the newspaper’s quality, Times Union management added two more jobs to its target list.

Now the company wants to cut two district manager jobs, reducing the already thin ranks from 14 to 12.

The announcement came moments after the Guild presented a counteroffer to the TU’s buyout proposal. The union proposed employees get three weeks’ severance for each year of service with a minimum of 26 weeks. The union also called for company-paid health insurance for the same time period, and no bar to unemployment.

The buyout would be offered to all employees but it would likely be granted outside the targeted jobs only if a Web or Ad art worker could move into that spot.

The company had earlier proposed two weeks’ per year of service, with a minimum of 12 weeks and a maximum of 52.

Guild bargainers Tim O’Brien, Tim Neff, Marianne Mahr and John Michaels pointed out that since there were few people in the targeted areas with high seniority, that proposal would draw little interest.

The three employees prepared detailed reports on what they do, how their workload has increased and why cutting the jobs would hurt the newspaper. Unfortunately, Publisher George Hearst and other top managers were not present so the main spokesperson for the TU was company lawyer Peter Rahbar.

Marianne Mahr of Advertising art/marketing noted the staff has already been cut 25 percent and another 30 percent reduction would make it hard to get work done. The number of jobs expected of each artist is up 16 percent, she said. “We often struggle to meet our deadlines,” she said.

John Michaels, who prepares online ads, said his department has won awards for its work but that will be harder to do with fewer workers given less time. Web workers do an average of 40 ads a week, which adds up to more than one an hour. “When there are fewer people working, there are more errors,” he said.

Tim Neff, an online news producer, said the new Web site does not require less work to run and online staff does far more than paste stories on pages. “Reducing our staff would seriously affect our ability to manage timesunion.com,” he said.

Cathleen Crowley, the Times Union’s medical writer, sent a letter to Publisher George Hearst about the outstanding work done by the Web team on the Dead by Mistake Series.

After the Guild made its buyout proposal, the TU then said it wanted to offer buyouts to trim two DM jobs. O’Brien said the union needed time to talk to employees. As with the print shop last year and the other posts this year, the union will seek DM representatives to put together an information request and compile the case for saving these jobs. If you’re interested in working on this issue, contact O’Brien at 466-8700.

The union will next meet with the Company on Oct. 12 and 26

The Times Union’s proposed cutting of six more jobs would harm the newspaper’s quality, members said at a meeting Thursday to discuss the proposal.

The company is proposing to eliminate four jobs in advertising art/marketing and two in online editorial. Company officials made a proposal earlier this week to offer buyouts targeted only to those positions.

The Guild called a meeting at the Colonie Public Library with affected workers to discuss the proposal and how best to respond.

With the Times Union hiring additional advertising sales staff – a step members welcomed – employees questioned how more ads could be handled with fewer workers to create them. During its law-breaking layoff of workers last year, the Times Union already cut two advertising artist positions. Other jobs have been lost due to promotions.

After a recent revamping of the newspaper’s Web site, readers and advertisers have begun to complain about the heavily formatted site that reduces the visibility of the breaking news that is the heart of what the Times Union does.

Workers in the online area also said they do far more than post items to the Web. They work closely with writers and editors to highlight local reporting and to think of creative ways to draw eyes to stories, photos and video.

While the Times Union claimed the jobs were being cut, not outsourced, employees expressed skepticism of that claim since workers at the Hearst Connecticut papers can make changes to the TU’s Web site.

Employees Marianne Mahr, John Michaels and Tim Neff agreed to join President Tim O’Brien at the bargaining table to discuss the company’s proposal. First, these employees will gather information from their colleagues. The Guild also has reached out to our International for help in these talks.

Times Union management proposed Tuesday to cut six more jobs at the newspaper, four of them in the advertising/marketing area and two on the Web desk in editorial.

The Guild listened to the company’s proposal and its suggested buyout terms but did not present a response. Union leaders said they needed time to get input from employees in the affected areas.

The union will hold a meeting for members from noon to 2 p.m. Thursday at the Colonie Public Library. Everyone in the affected titles is urged to attend.

The company did not provide a proposal in writing but said it would mirror last year’s buyout offer with two weeks for every year of service, with a minimum of 12 weeks and a maximum of 52. Health care would be for the same number of weeks, with a minimum of insurance to the end of the year. The Times Union would not challenge unemployment claims.

The union did not make a counteroffer. Guild President Tim O’Brien and First Vice President Lindsay LaFountain attended the meeting, but the company declined to say in advance what the topic was. Typically, the union brings members in affected areas to any discussion.

“We would not agree to anything without getting input from our members,” O’Brien said. “We also have concerns that the workload in both cannot be done with so few people. We need to get input and data from our members before we can respond intelligently.”

Publisher George Hearst said the online job cuts resulted from the recent reformatting of the Web site. The site is much more formatted, he said, requiring fewer people to put it together.

The revised Web site, which many see as far weaker than the former site, is connected to the Hearst operations in Connecticut. Changes on the TU’s pages can be made by workers there. While the Company claims the work is being eliminated, not outsourced, the Guild needs to discuss that issue further with the affected members.

Outsourcing of work under the imposed conditions requires negotiations. (There would be no negotiations over outsourcing if members had approved the Times Union’s proposed contract last year, and there is no guarantee of severance, never mind an enhanced buyout, in a non-union workplace.)

If the company did not get the number of people to take the buyout it wants, it would be required to negotiate any layoffs outside of seniority. Again, if members had approved the company’s proposed contract last year, members would have no right to bargain over layoffs.