Some of our colleagues upstairs in the Business Office were stunned when they were suddenly informed they had to start following a dress code.

So were we. Dress codes are a mandatory subject of bargaining, and the Company has never raised the issue with the Guild. Once again, we have the Company acting as if there is no union in the place and trying to impose its will without discussion.

It’s not that we don’t want you to  look good, but if the Company wants to tell you how to dress, perhaps it should be willing to spare extra cash to help you buy fancier duds. And such Company rules can also be aimed at the union: If we tell you what to wear, then maybe that union t-shirt you were planning to don will be outside the dress code.

We’ve alerted the Company that this is a mandatory subject of  bargaining.

“We need to minimize this agreement,” George Hearst said at the bargaining table Monday, holding up your contract.

What does that mean? It means the Company is continuing to demand the unfettered right to outsource your work, lay you off with no protection for seniority, cut your pay, add unreasonable duties and change your days off without your consent.

Isn’t this where negotiations began? Pretty much.

On Monday, Guild bargainers went back on the record in the wake of a memo (see previous post) from the Hearst newspaper in San Antonio. That e-mail message to employees there referred to a meeting recently held in New York City where editors from Hearst newspapers discussed the “coming consolidation plan.”

Guild bargainers wanted to know what that means, especially given that the same memo refers to outsourcing page design and  copy editing work to Houston, 199 miles away from San Antonio. The new computer system in editorial at the Times Union, as well as the e-mail system, is based in Houston as well.

“I am not aware of any specific plans to outsource work to Houston,” Hearst said.

Guild leaders said they found it hard to swallow that the Hearst Corp. had no idea what it would do if given a blank check to outsource work, which is what the Company is proposing, especially in light of the San Antonio memo.

Guild President Tim O’Brien, quoting International Rep. Jim Schaufenbil, noted that when companies are given the unrestrained right to outsource work, they do so.

George Hearst said he would try to find out what the “coming consolidation plan” means and answer Guild bargainers when negotiations resume at 10 a.m. Tuesday in the Executive Conference Room. Members are free to attend on their own time, as quite a few did Monday. (Unfortunately, the Company arrived more than 40 minutes’ late, so most could not stay.)

This stunning memo from San Antonio reveals that the Hearst Corp. is already outsourcing copy editing and page design work to Houston.

And editors from all its newspapers were summoned to discuss the “coming consolidation project.”

In San Antonio, the travel section is already being put together in Houston and the food section will follow in January.

Yes, both cities are in Texas, but they are 199 miles apart. It would be be like having Albany stories edited by staffers at Newsday on Long Island.

Folks, we can’t say it plainer: The Company wants to take your jobs and outsource them. This memo makes it clear why the Times Union’s computer system in editorial and e-mail system is now out of Houston. Read the memo and it will all make sense.

Look around you.

If the Company got its way and could outsource any job, what could go?

Circulation calls. Classified ad sales. Page design. Editing. Advertising and editorial art. Payroll and accounting.

The oh-so-slow new computer system in editorial is based in Houston. Someone there, who has never been to Albany, could edit copy and lay it out on a page as easily (but not as accurately) as we do. E-mails to the calendar desk could be read there, the calendars compiled, edited and sent to a page designer and laid out without anyone in Albany ever looking at it. (Sure, there might be more mistakes, but there are already more getting in because fewer people are proofreading the paper under the new system.)

Sound impossible? It’s not. It’s already happening in our industry. One person even started a “news” Web site in Pasadena, California that hired “reporters” in India to watch the television feed of City Council meetings and write stories about them. (They missed it when a group of black lawmakers walked out in protest because it was off camera.)

It’s not hard to see what gets lost. Quality. Accuracy. (How do you ask how a speaker spells his or her name when you’re not even in the same part of the country or world?)

But many newspapers are going this route as if it’s their salvation. It’s not. It’s their doom. If the Times Union leadership thinks this is the path to follow, it will be the beginning of the end. Whatever you’ll call it in the future, it’s not journalism. It’s not customer service. It’s not news.

But look around you. The question is not what would go. It’s what would stay.

Guild members approved a switch to the MVP health-care plan Friday by a vote of 81-31.

The change takes effect January 1. Members will be able to sign up for a health-savings account with Berkshire Bank that will enable them to set aside money before taxes to pay medical costs. These accounts will enable employees to carry moneyover into the next year. If workers leave or retire, they can either cash out the money (paying a tax penalty) or switch to a tax-exempt IRA.

The 112 members voting is a little less than half the membership, though many people who take the health-insurance buyout said they did not want to decide what insurance other employees receive. Others said they were too torn to vote: They didn’t much like the upfront deductible, but they also thought the union had bigger fights on its hands.

Several of the no votes were quite emphatic. One person wrote “Hell No!”  on their ballot, while another wrote “Tell the Company (Times Union) to stop messing with the Guild employees!!!!”

“Our members had very serious questions about this switch and about having to pay so much money upfront for medical expenses,” Guild President Tim O’Brien said. “In the end, they decided that the switch was worth doing so long as the employee’s share of the deductible remains where it is as long as we remain in this plan. We do appreciate the Company’s efforts to find ways to reduce the costs, but the real way to solve this crisis is to find a national solution.”