The Guild and Company agreed Friday on the details of an official buyout offer to be made available to members. Under the contract, buyout offers must be approved by the membership. A vote will be scheduled for later in the week.

The offer is largely along the lines the Guild had proposed, with enhanced health insurance for long-term employees. People taking the buyout will get severance pay as outlined in the contract (generally, two weeks for each year of service). They will get the same number of weeks health insurance as they get severance, with a guaranteed minimum of coverage through the end of the year.

In other words, an employee with 20 years of service would get 40 weeks’ pay and 40 weeks of health care. An employee with 25 years of experience would get 50 weeks’ pay and 50 weeks’ health insurance.

Workers would pay their share of health-care costs, the amount deducted weekly from their checks. If the coverage went into 2010, they would have to pay the first $750 of health-care  costs under the upfront deductible.

People who take the buyout would be eligible for unemployment. They would have access to clips.

One final question that needs to be answered is what happens to people who now take a health-insurance buyout. The Guild has proposed that those employees should get the buyout for 2009 and a fraction of the buyout for 2010 based on how many weeks of coverage they get.

Once we have an agreement on that, the Guild will schedule a vote in one of the executive conference rooms. If it is approved — and we’re confident it will be — people will have until April 15 to apply, and they would be let go later that month. Buyouts will occur before anyone is laid off, Publisher George Hearst said Friday.

The Guild gave the Company 17 names Friday of people who expressed interest in a buyout, with seven each from editorial and advertising and the rest from other departments. Those folks and any others interested in the formal offer now on the table would have to apply.

“The Guild is proud that our insistence in pushing for voluntary buyouts will lessen the number of people laid off,” Guild President Tim O’Brien said. “Some of our colleagues will get to keep their jobs because we stood up for them.”

We’ll provide more details as soon as a vote is scheduled.

Metroland has a story today on our fight for a fair contract at the Times Union. You can read it here.

In light of the reaction among some advertising employees, the Guild’s leadership has decided to delay further distribution of bulletins to advertisers for now. Should the Company go ahead with its threat to cancel the contract on April 9, however, all bets are off.

“We understand that advertising employees have had their commissions deeply cut, and now the Company is demanding they hit every one of their goals to get the same commissions they had earned,” Guild President Tim O’Brien said. “We also know that many are afraid that if they don’t hit their goals, they will have a 90-day performance improvement plan put in their personal files.”

At the same time, however, the Guild cannot be left defenseless should the Company cancel the contract and end employees’ right to take grievances to arbitration. Advertising and circulation boycotts are a last resort, but one that we need to prepare for given the Company’s unprecedented threat.

“If the contract is canceled, we will have no choice but to launch a circulation and, yes, advertising boycott,” O’Brien said. “The same people who expressed  their concerns about this to the Guild should now turn to their bosses and make clear: Whether a boycott occurs is in their hands.”

The Guild also received a call from New York State United Teachers asking if the union should cancel an ad set for Tuesday. NYSUT was told not to do that, but the teachers’ union informed the Times Union there would be no future ads if the contract is canceled. Other labor unions will take the same step.

The decision to delay advertiser alerts came literally minutes before fliers were about to be distributed in front of several Central Avenue businesses in Albany on Tuesday. The Guild will continue to let the public know about the Company’s attack on our union in other ways.

Our members are invited to stop by from 6-7:30 p.m. Friday at Maxie’s to talk to Guild leaders  and find out how you can help convince the Company that there will be dramatic consequences to canceling our contract. Find out what actions are being planned and how you  can participate.

The Guild has proudly represented advertising employees for decades: Fighting off efforts to create commission-only sales positions, negotiating base pay and representing employees who were subjected to discipline.

“We cannot stress clearly enough that this is everyone’s fight. No one should think they can sit on the sidelines and get the Company to compromise,” O’Brien said. “Boycotts could and will begin within weeks unless the Company is convinced in advance what a terrible mistake that would be.”

At the Times Union, the Hearst Corp. initially had no interest in offering buyouts. It just wanted to go straight to layoffs. It was the Guild that called the Company on it and forced the issue.

So it was shocking to find this story on the Web: The very same Hearst Corp. offered buyouts to its employees at its newly purchased newspapers in Connecticut. And this was the work of none other than our former publisher and current unit publisher, Mark Aldam.

Hey, folks. Your loyal employees here at the TU deserves no less than the folks in Connecticut.

Do you have questions for the Guild’s bargaining committee? Suggestions of what we could be doing better or differently?
With the severity and complexity of the current situation, we want to make sure we are aware of the viewpoints and feelings of all our
members.

Please come to Maxie’s, just around the corner on Wolf Road between 6 p.m. and 7:30 p.m. on Friday.  This isn’t a meeting, just an informal get-together where you can approach your member leaders and let them know what you think of their strategies.