There is no way to sugarcoat this, folks. George Hearst’s latest e-mail to staffers contains a bald-faced lie.

The publisher states “regrettably, the Guild bargaining committee is not available to meet with our committee at all next week.”

That is false. No formal sessions are scheduled for next week, but the Guild clearly stated to company bargainers and to Hearst himself that it would be glad to receive any proposals the Company wants to make via e-mail. The Guild’s bargaining committee could then discuss it among themselves and respond via e-mail or we would be willing to come in and have a face-to-face discussion.

“We made this comment directly to the Company’s two attorneys during bargaining,” Guild President Tim O’Brien said. “And we ran into George Hearst as we came off the elevator and repeated the message. While we expect the Company to put its spin on what happens in negotiations, we do not expect them to flat out lie about what we say. George Hearst and his two attorneys owe our bargaining team an apology and a retraction.”

O’Brien said it made little sense to spend hours tied up in conference rooms waiting for the Company to make miniscule movements (and then loudly denounce the Guild, which has moved much further much faster). This is especially true when one bargaining committee member, Stacy Wood, is facing potential firing for not selling ads while she negotiates.

The following week, the Guild team is available for four days and even offered to give up its Saturday if talks are bearing fruit.

The rest of Hearst’s memo contains several distortions of fact. The bargaining committee has made clear that the Company’s unprecedented decision to cancel the contract requires we spend time preparing for boycotts, picketing and other actions we hope not to employ. But we made clear we intend to continue to bargain in good faith and offer solutions in the meantime.

“The Company wants it both ways: It wants to threaten to cancel the contract, cutting off the union’s funding and eliminate the right to take grievances to arbitration,” O’Brien said. “And then it wants to pretend that they’re the good guys. It wants to make little to no movement at the bargaining table and then complain that the Guild, which has made far more movement, is the problem.”

The comment made that we regressed on one proposal, requiring that the Publisher review every layoff, is silly. That was our counter to the Company’s claim that a fair way to prevent favoritism was to have the publisher review every layoff done outside of seniority. If the publisher does not want to be involved in reviewing layoffs, that’s fine by us and we’ll withdraw that portion of our proposal.

Of course, the Publisher has nothing to say about a far more damning regression he made. The Company on March 10 proposed to eliminate the rehiring list so that employees could be laid off and someone new could be hired for their job.

The Guild’s Bargaining Team provided a new comprehensive package proposal Friday. (We’re having a little trouble getting it to link for you.)

The union did exactly what the Company had done a day before. After an extensive discussion on outsourcing and seniority protections during layoffs, the Company gave the Guild two proposals that were exactly the same as their earlier language except they both gave the union the right to come chat about the issues.

The Company could still outsource any and all jobs. Even if the union came up with a plan to do the same work in-house for the same price (or less), the Company could still lay you off and send your job elsewhere.

The Company could still pick and choose which employees to lay off, regardless of how long and loyal their service. And the additional language would only allow the Guild to appeal to the publisher (who would, of course, feel the need to back his own managers) and to hear the reasons for the Company’s decisions without having any recourse to respond.

So the Guild’s answer was to tweak its own language in the exact same fashion: We added clauses on both issues that said if the Company wants to talk about outsourcing work beyond what we already proposed to allow, its leaders could come to the Guild and talk about it but no further outsourcing could be done without the union’s consent.

And we added a phrase saying the final decision on any layoffs would rest with the publisher, but they’d still have to be done by reverse order of seniority by job title. (We’ve moved off the current language that says seniority by department.)

The Company’s reaction was almost comical: When it made the exact same move, it called it progressive and an attempt to move the discussion forward. When we did it, it was called handing over the exact same proposal.

The Guild was especially disappointed because the two sides had fruitful discussions the day before that focused on exempting employees with specific skills. (The burden would be on the Company to demonstrate the employees had such skills, and the Guild could take cases to arbitration.) There were discussions about paying employees laid off out of seniority additional severance and benefits and capping the number of people who could be cut out of seniority.

In putting its proposal forth, the Company ignored all of those discussions.

The parties are not scheduled to formally meet next week, as International Rep. Jim Schaufenbil is tied up in Erie, Pa. Guild President Tim O’Brien suggested it might be more effective a use of time if the Company had any proposals to e-mail them to the bargaining team. The team could then either ask to meet face to face with the Company to discuss them or e-mail a response back.

“We hope to continue talking next week,” O’Brien said. “But we think exchanges of proposals by e-mail might be more productive than sitting in the conference room waiting for proposals to be decided upon, written and copied especially if the Company continues its go-slow approach to any movement from its side.”

The parties are committed to meeting April 7-10, and the Guild bargainers have said they’d even be willing to meet that Saturday if the talks were fruitful.

Guild leaders also must spend time next week gearing up for the possible cancellation of the contract on April 9. The union is working with lawyers on legal strategy, but also putting together an alternative dues collection system so it is in place before April 9. We also have been working to mobilize our members and supporters from other unions in the Capital Region.

“It’s unfortunate that we have to spend time away from crafting bargaining proposals to prepare for boycotts and picketing, but we are left no choice,” O’Brien said. “And we will be quite ready to do whatever is necessary on behalf of our members.”

Schaufenbil told the Company that cancelling the contract could cost both sides hundreds of thousands of dollars, an unwise move under current conditions.

Guild members who handle recruitment ads were told by a manager that their positions would be safe, while other employees who handle circulation calls were told some of their jobs would be cut.

This comes at the same time the Guild has expressed frustration at the bargaining table at the lack of specifics on layoffs, and the Company’s bargainers have insisted they have no information on any plans. That information is vital as members decide whether to apply for buyouts.

As the bargaining committee stepped off the elevator for the day, Publisher George Hearst was waiting to cost the Company another 15 cents by riding back up. (You all got that e-mail about how much an elevator ride costs, right?)

The Guild bargaining team (including International Rep. Jim Schaufenbil) then asked the publisher what light he could shed on the conflicting stories.

Hearst insisted that he and only he knows what any plans are and “they are not cooked.” And even though recruitment advertising employees were told by a manager that Mark Aldam had said their jobs were safe, Hearst said anyone saying such a thing is a rogue operator.

We know. That doesn”t clarify anything or help anyone make a decision. We just thought you ought to know.

One of the best people I’ve had the fortune to meet in the labor movement is Walt Wheeler.

Walt cannot speak yet he is one of the most outspoken voices in the union movement. Paul Grondahl wrote a wonderful story about him around Labor Day in 2005.

Walt is the secretary/treasurer of the Capital District Union Label and Services Trades Council. He was among six labor union representatives to sit down with Publisher George Hearst this week to tell him that the region’s unions would support the Guild.

The other participants were: Lee Cutler of New York State United Teachers; Steve Green of the Amalgamated Transit Union; Jeff Stark on behalf of the Building Trades; Tom Comanzo of the Public Employees Federation; and Kathleen Scales of the Capital District Area Labor Federation.

We are grateful all of these leaders took the time out to speak on behalf of the men and women of the Times Union. The meeting began with this wonderful letter from Walt.

We’ll give the Company its due. After months of refusing to budge on the top two issues in negotiations, it finally presented new proposals Friday on both outsourcing of work and seniority protections during layoffs.

We’re not saying we’re thrilled with the proposals, but we’re glad to see that they are at least moving off the positions they’ve held since Day 1.

“While we didn’t need the threat of a cancelled contract to prompt us to offer concessions, the potential for boycotts and picketing apparently has inspired the Company to start moving,” Guild President Tim O’Brien said. “We’re grateful for that, although we are still a long ways apart.”

The Company’s proposal on layoffs would still give them the power to choose whomever they want to discharge. In a case where someone was let go out of seniority order, the publisher would review and approve the decision. The Guild would also be given 45 days’ notice of the decision and would be able to discuss the factors used for selection.

The Company is also still calling for elimination of the rehiring list.

The Company’s attorneys argued that giving the publisher final say would eliminate the element of favoritism raised by the Guild.

“It’s not in the Company’s interest, either, to fire someone because some low-level manager targets them because of union activity or skin color…,” attorney Mark Batten said.

Guild Bargaining Committee member John DeMania said it was doubtful the publisher would want to be seen as reversing the decision of one of his managers. He also might not be familiar with the employee given the demands of his own job.

On the issue of outsourcing, the Company proposed that it would give the union four weeks’ notice of any plans to outsource including specific work to be outsourced, where it will go, and what the other costs and benefits would be compared to keeping the work in-house.

The Guild would have a chance to make an offer to keep the work, but the Company’s proposal does not require that proposal to be accepted.

The union also would be given a chance to discuss how employees might be redeployed. The parties would also work together on attracting work from other newspapers, as is now happening in circulation and advertising.

“We appreciate that the Company has moved,” O’Brien said. “That’s really what we needed to break the logjam. We will study their proposal and provide a counteroffer of our own.”

The Guild’s bargaining team will meet at the union office Friday morning to formulate its response, which will be delivered sometime later in the day.