The Company acknowledged Wednesday its legal obligation to provide 45 days’ notice to employees if they are to be laid off.

Last week, the Company had said the 45-day notice provision began when it started negotiating with the Guild over the implementation of its layoff language. Guild bargainers noted Wednesday that while the Company’s proposal imposed (we believe illegally) new language on layoffs under Section 3(D) of the contract, it did not alter Section 3(C) which clearly states: “In lieu of notice to the employee, forty five (45) days pay shall be given.”

The Company acknowledged that is true. It attorney, Peter Rahbar, said: “We will provide individuals with 45-days’ notice.”

During the session, the Guild gave the Company two information requests. The  first asked for the results of the so-called “test runs” the Company did of its criteria — in other words, the employees’ names that would be on the layoff  list if that criteria was used. We also asked for the number of employees in each job title who would be laid off and for details on what would happen to that work. We asked what employees would be expected to do the work, if any job duties would  change and if the Company will seek to outsource any of the work.

The second request was an extensive review of the Company’s typo-ridden questionnaires in editorial. Many of those questions mentioned “quality standards,” “length standards,” “productivity standards,” etc. In every instance, the Guild asked the Company to provide copies of those standards, when and by whom they were developed, proof that employees had been informed of the standards and evidence that the standards were negotiated with the Guild as the law requires.

The  evaluation forms also made repeated references to employees expressing an interest in learning. We asked the Company to provide evidence that it has indeed tracked every time an employee asks for training.

The forms also asked questions about video and multimedia. Again, the Guild asked for information on what training was done and whether everyone was given an equal opportunity.

The Company said it would take some time to gather the responses, so they ended the days’ talks and the parties set the next meeting for Wednesday, July 8 starting at 10 a.m. As always, employees can attend on their own time.

The Guild also filed charges with the National Labor Relations Board over the illegal declaration of impasse. A board agent contacted the union Wednesday to begin gathering information for an investigation.

“It’s unfortunate we have to go this route but the Company has left us with no choice,” Guild President Tim O’Brien said. “From day one, the Hearst Corp. has refused to modify the core of its two main proposals, giving the Company unfettered discretion to lay off anyone or to outsource any job.”

When the Company imposed an impasse (illegally, we might add) it didn’t just post the most controversial proposals on outsourcing and layoffs. There are other changes it is trying to force on us as well.

For example, some employees have been told to work past 37.5 hours but that they would not get paid overtime until they hit 40 hours. (They would get paid at normal rates instead.) The Guild did not agree to this contractual change and will be legally challenging it.

So what do you do if your boss tells you to work overtime but not to put down for it? First, obey the directive. You can be found insubordinate for refusing to follow orders even if the order itself was later found to be illegal. (Exceptions are rarely made and usually if the employee fears for his or her health or safety.)

Second, keep track of it. Save a record. Because if we are successful in our legal appeals, the Company will be ordered to pay back everyone whose overtime it denied.

The Newspaper Guild has scheduled meetings for people to hear about the Company’s proposed criteria for laying off outside seniority.

The Guild will meet at 12:30 p.m. Friday in the cafeteria with the marketing media specialists. It will meet at the same time Monday in the cafeteria with the advertising artists. (If it’s nice, we can sit outside.)

Since there is a far larger group in editorial, we will hold two meetings Tuesday at the Best Western on Wolf Road. One session will start at noon and the second at 5. (Space at the town library is hard to come by, sadly, now that schools are out and summer programming has begun. We also looked into the meeting room at the Crossings Park, but that was unavailable.)

We want to hear your thoughts on the Company’s proposed criteria for layoffs, which you can find in our earlier post.

Please join us at one of these very important sessions. The information you provide will be useful as we meet with the Company on Wednesday, July 1.

Come join your colleagues and help us figure out what this means: “Does the Editorial Assistant have the appropriate sense of urgency and understand the importance of deadline meet standards?” (Seriously, that’s one of the questions in the newsroom’s performance evaluations.)

There will be no names or numbers on layoffs this week.

In most departments, the Company said layoffs would be done in reverse order of seniority. Exceptions would be made for almost all of editorial as well as for advertising artists and marketing media specialists.

The Company must negotiate the criteria first before it can announce the names of people who will be laid off, but department managers all said they had done a “test run” of their criteria by applying it to individual names. In other words, they’ve got their lists but want to go through the motions of appearing to negotiate.

The Company also said it would accept further buyout applications if anyone wanted to step forward. It also said it would reconsider at least some of the four buyout applications from Guild members it rejected.

In a moment, we’ll share with you the Company’s documents outlining what they said would be the criteria for layoffs for each of 11 job titles. We had thorough discussions of all of them that ended after 6 p.m.  Tomorrow, Guild President Tim O’Brien will be on leave and will work out a schedule for people in those job categories to meet and discuss the proposed criteria with Guild leaders.

The two sides are scheduled to resume negotiations at 10 a.m. Wednesday, July 1. The company contended today’s meeting started the 45-day clock on layoff notices, meaning that employees would be let go effective Monday, Aug. 10. The Guild believes the 45-day notice begins when a list of employee names is produced.

For the titles of advertising artist and marketing media specialist, the list of eight criteria is identical. In these two instances, the Company said it would rank employees in each of the first seven areas with a score of one to three. It would then add up the scores. In the event of a tie between workers, seniority would then be used to decide who stays and who goes.

In editorial, the Times Union produced an 18-page document that was riddled with typos, punctuation errors, missing words, and words in nonsense order. O’Brien called it “an excellent example of why you need content editors.” He said it was stunning to realize the people responsible for presenting such a document would be judging others’ performances.

Sample question: “Arre the reporter’s language skills — spelling, grammar and vovabulary — sufficient?”

Fortunately for you, the document was e-mailed to the Guild as nine different two-page documents, one for each of the affected job titles. We’ll share those in a second. Now we’re going to try to explain to you how the Company would use this form.

(You might want to get a couple of Tylenol and a glass of water ready.)

First, it would use the two-page questionnaire to evaluate each employee, with employees rated by a score of zero, one or two points for each answer. A zero would mean an employee doesn’t meet expectations, a one would mean the worker meets expectations and a 2 would mean the employee exceeds expectations.

Different questions would be weighted differently, again on a scale of 1 to 3. For example, the answer to the question “Does the reporter’s work regularly make it to the front page and section front positions?” would be weighted with a factor of two. The employee’s score would be the points multipled by the weighting. (An employee who meets expectations for getting work out front would get a score of 1 times 2 or 2.)

In another example, the question “Is the reporter reliable or punctual?” would have a weight of 1. So an employee who met that criteria would get a score of 1 times 1.)

(Hey, don’t blame us. We didn’t come up with this system.)

But that’s unfortunately not it. The Company would then use your score on the evaluation and apply it to six other areas to make a final decision.

We realize if you’re not confused by now, there is either something wrong with you or you have a great future in management. This is why we will schedule meetings with individual groups. There is only so much clarity you can provide in a blog, and at this hour after a long day, we’re not entirely sure we’re up to the task.

But before we go, here is the last bit of information we’d like to share with you. These are the nine editorial titles and the two-page questionnaires the Company proposed for each:

• Content editor
• Page designer/artist
• Page designer/editor
• Reporter
• Photographer
• NIS Coordinator
• NIS Associate
• Editorial Assistant
• Wire Editor

And the Company said on the reporter evaluation form, it gave the wrong numbers (and in one instance no number) for the weight factors. The first four factors on page one of the reporter form are supposed to have a weight factor of 2. The top factor on the second page is supposed to have a factor of 3, and the second question is supposed to have a weight factor of 2.

The Company has moved today’s bargaining session to 1 p.m., rather than the original 11 a.m. start time. Members are free to attend on their own time.

Bargaining Committee members will meet in the cafeteria at noon if you want to stop by, wish us luck and ask any questions you may have. When we have information, we will share it with you as quickly as we can — though it will likely require a drive back to the Guild office. If you’re not sure we have current contact information for you, please feel free to e-mail us at office@albanyguild.org.