The Guild extends its congratulations to George Hearst on his promotion to publisher of the Times Union.

George is known for being affable and approachable, and he knows many, if not most, of the employees on a first-name basis.

He also is well-known for his involvement in the community.

Yes, he’s been the Company’s chief negotiator during these exceedingly difficult contract talks but we are cautiously optimistic he will set a fresh tone now that he is publisher. We look forward to working with George as a partner in keeping the Times Union a vital part of the community for many years to come.

In the first on-the-record session since June, the Company came in with a new proposal that made more demands.

One revision would give the Company the unilateral right to change health insurance plans and your share of any deductible. The new plan would not have to be comparable, as the current language requires.

“In a proposal full of tough sells, you’ve added another one,” Guild President Tim O’Brien told Company bargainers.

So if you want to know if the Company is grateful that you agreed to switch to the MVP plan, the answer is no. They are still mad you and your union carefully examined and weighed the proposal, and they don’t want you to have the right to do that again.

And starting January 1 next year, they want your share of health care  costs to leap from 16 percent to 25 percent. And they want to bar married couples who both work at the Times Union from receiving the health-insurance buyout when one partner opts out of coverage.

The Company also proposed that overtime only be paid after you work 40 hours a week. The work week would still be 7.5 hours a day and 37.5 a week. You would not  get any overtime for working more than 7.5 hours a day, only if you worked more than 40 in a week. Any work down between 37.5 and 40 hours would be at straight time.

The proposals to allow the Company to outsource your work, cut your pay and reduce seniority rights in event of layoff all remain on the table. The Company still wants the right to change your days off without your agreement, although they removed the proposal to let them split your days off against your will.

The Company said a proposal on wages would come later. Attached is a current copy of the company’s proposal.

After dropping all that on the table, the Company then again canceled the next scheduled bargaining session. The parties are set to meet at 10 a.m. Feb. 26, March 10, March 11 and March 26 and at 1 p.m. March 25.

Guild bargainers took some time afterward to discuss how to respond to the Company’s offer. The answer: Mobilize!

Employees in editorial were surprised to get a memo informing them that they were now going to work a “hybrid” week.

Some days they might work more than 7.5 hours, some days they might work less. In this way, the Company could avoid paying overtime.

There is only one problem with this, and it’s a big one. The contract specifies under Section 26.B., Page 50, that a work day is 7.5 hours with an hour for lunch. There are exceptions if you’re working a four-day work week or part of a job share, but the Company doesn’t have the right to unilaterally impose such a thing.

And, no, once again the Company did not talk to the Guild before issuing such a memo. Sadly, that’s par for the course these days. We’ll bring it up at bargaining today.

Five weeks after the Guild gave the Company a comprehensive off-the-record proposal that included significant givebacks, the Company showed up at the bargaining table Wednesday with no response.

So the two parties are going back on the record starting with a session that begins at 1 p.m. Thursday. It is as if it’s still June and the off-the-record talks the Company sought and kept insisting we extend never happened. This despite the Guild’s willingness to take some steps its members never would have imagined. Those concessions are now off the table.

“The Company likes to talk about flexibility, but it was not interested in demonstrating very much,” Guild President Tim O’Brien said. “We are  very disappointed in the failure of the Company to match our efforts in trying to move this contract forward. Unfortunately, the Company was not interested in bargaining but in demanding we give in to virtually everything they wanted, whether or not it had any connection to the state of the economy or of the newspaper.”

But O’Brien said there is a great benefit to the end of the closed-door sessions.

“Now we get to communicate to our members everything we say and everything the Company proposes,” he said. “And we know that the best way to get a contract in these tough times is for our members to have their voices heard. We appreciate our members’ patience as we tried to work things out off-the-record, and we know we can count on your vocal support as we return to public talks.”

The bargaining team is conscious of the difficult economy, and it knows the new contract agreement will not be as generous as past agreements.

“We were and are willing to make concessions that help this newspaper through tough times,” O’Brien said. “But the newspaper also needs to work with us as partners and not simply demand we cave to every one of the bosses’ desires.”

Less than five months after we reached an agreement on a newsroom reorganization, the Company violated it.

The Guild agreed, at the Company’s insistence, to separate out the changing of titles and duties from the rest of contract negotiations, which the union did not have to do. However, we were willing to be flexible.

You’ll recall that the Company’s original proposal was to remove almost every Guild title from the top pay class and make the occupants either exempt or place them in Classification B. On July 31, we reached an agreement that moved many copy editors into new Class A positions of content editor or page designer.

Part of the agreement allowed the Company to move some Guild-covered positions into new exempt titles of Team Leader. But both parties agreed that two Class A positions would remain in the Guild: the assistant photo editor and design editor.

Now, with no discussion, the Company has violated that agreement and claimed it has created a new exempt position of executive news editor that will be the number two position in the editorial art department. This is called an unachieved demand: The Company is trying to impose what it failed to gain in bargaining.

Now, you’ll note we have not mentioned the employee by name, though her newsroom colleagues know who it is. There’s a reason. She’s a very nice person, we like her very much and we think she’d be more than deserving of a real promotion. She’s also not responsible for the Company’s decision to engage in the most blatant violation of an agreement we’ve ever seen.

It’s very sad that the Company cannot keep its word. It’s also illegal. A grievance has been filed, and we’ve sought a hearing. We expect to move swiftly to arbitration if the Company does not live up to an agreement it made July 31 and broke before the year was out.