The Newspaper Guild of Albany will hold its annual meeting at 12:30 p.m. Wednesday, January 13, at the Colonie Public Library.

Two open seats on the Executive Board are up for election after the retirement of former first vice president Bill Federman and the departure for a new job of third vice president Marci Schuck. The terms are for the remainder of this year. All board seats are up for election in September 2016.

The positions require attendance at the monthly Executive Board meeting, held at 5:30 p.m. on the second Thursday of each month. Board members develop bargaining proposals, make decisions on health care and other proposals, and decide on any grievances or other issues that arise.

It’s also a great way to get to know your colleagues within your own department and in other departments.

The annual meeting was delayed as the Guild was involved first in buyout negotiations and then health-care discussions. In addition, the union has been researching several possible changes to its bylaws. One would save money on workers’ compensation costs by merely changing the titles of two of the vice presidents to board member at large. Another proposed bylaw change would follow the national trend of renaming the local the Albany NewsGuild. A third would make the process of amending the bylaws in the future easier.

Currently, any change to the bylaws requires all members to receive notice by mail at least 30 days’ prior to a vote of the exact language to be changed. We had sought an opinion on whether we could send out postcards informing members of the vote and refer them online to the wording of the question. (We would provide written copies to anyone who did not have Internet access.) Ironically, we were told doing so would require an amendment of the bylaws.

We are finalizing the exact wording of the proposed changes and determining the timeline for when we can send out the letters for those changes, but did not want to delay voting on the open board seats any further.

Here are the details on how to run for a board seat:

Election Information:
The vacant positions are First Vice President and Third Vice President. The term will continue through December 31, 2016.

Members must be in good standing to run for office and to attend the nomination meeting. If you want to check your standing, email the Guild office at office@albanyguild.org.

If there is only one nomination for any office, and the person accepts nomination, the person will be elected at the meeting. If there is more than one candidate for any office, a Local Elections Committee will be appointed and a mail-in ballot election will be held.

Nominations for any office may be from the floor, by petition. Petitions may be for an individual candidate in which the name of the candidate, his/her Local unit (if applicable), and department worked listed. Such petitions must also contain the names of at least 25 members. Individuals signing a petition must be members in good standing. These petitions must be filed with the local Secretary at the membership meeting. The secretary shall notify all candidates of their nomination and shall receive from them a written notice of their willingness to serve.

The vote was 42-5.

At Tuesday afternoon’s information session, the company’s health care manager Rowlands & Barranca made a very important clarification on the proposed dental plan.

The $2,000 coverage cap for dental care under the Cigna plan is for each individual in a family, not the total for a household. A family of four, for example, would have a $2,000 cap for each parent and for each of two children, not one $2,000 cap for all of them.

Once the cap is reached, the Guild member would be responsible for any additional expenses.

Even Guild leaders had thought the cap was per family.

The other clarification is that the deductible that will apply to some services is a maximum of $50 for each individual and a maximum of $150 for a family. In that instance, a couple that both had teeth pulled would pay no more than $100 out of pocket. A family of four unlucky enough to all require pulled teeth or filled cavities would pay no more than $150.

The vote on the dental plan will be from noon to 1 p.m. Thursday and again from 5-5:30 p.m. Both votes will be in the advertising conference room on the second floor.

The Guild’s Executive Board is recommending approval of the plan, saying the benefits overall outweigh the negatives. The positives include 100 percent coverage of preventive care like oral exams, X-rays and cleaning as well as 50 percent coverage of periodontics and dentures, expenses not previously covered.

Change in dental plan comes with new benefits, $2,000 annual cap

Members will get to decide Thursday on health care coverage for 2016 that includes a proposed change in dental plans. The new plan comes with improved coverage but also has a $2,000 annual cap on expenses.

Employees whose coverage cost more than that would have to pay anything above the $2,000.

The Guild asked the Company how many employees would have exceeded the cap. In each of the last two years, two people had more than $2,000 in dental costs. It was different people each year, so four in all.

In 2014, one person had $2,742.40 in claims while another had $2,160.80. In 2015, one person had $2,300 in claims and the other had $2,250.40. Of course, what is unknown is if the employees could have delayed some of those services had the cap been in place to avoid paying any overrun.

The cap would increase each year by $100, and there is a 6.7 percent cap on increasing the rate for dental coverage for 2017.

As we said in an earlier bulletin, the Cigna PPO plan would offer coverage for some work, likes bridges, dentures and periodontics, that are not now covered. It would also include a deductible of $50 for singles and $150 for families for some expenses, although preventive care would be 100 percent covered. (Currently it’s 80 percent covered.)

The differences between the Cigna plan and the existing Blue Cross plan are sufficient that a switch will require a vote of the membership. (The contract language, still in effect, requires a vote when a new plan is not comparable to the old one.)

Rowlands & Barranca, who administer health insurance for the Times Union, will make a presentation on the differences to all employees at 3 p.m. Tuesday in the Executive Conference Room. Guild members are encouraged to attend.

A vote will be held in the advertising conference room on Thursday from noon until 1 p.m. and then again from 5-5:30 p.m. (That’s a shorter window for the evening session, but we’ve found in recent votes that no one shows up after 5:30 p.m.)

The vote will cause a slight delay in the start of Thursday’s Executive Board meeting, which will follow immediately after the vote count at the Guild’s office in the Albany Labor Temple. That meeting, as always, is open to the membership.

The new dental plan proposed by the Company would offer added coverage employees do not currently have, but it would come with a price for some of those services.

For some dental benefits, there would be a $50 deductible for individuals and an $150 deductible for families.

That deductible would not apply for preventive services like cleaning, X-rays and exams. Those services would be 100 percent covered, while the current plan pays for only 80 percent of those costs so that is an added benefit.

The deductible would apply for some services that employees now get without having to pay a deductible: Those include oral surgery, repair of dentures or bridges, fillings, and having teeth pulled. Under the existing Empire Blue Cross plan, 80 percent of those costs are covered. Under the proposed Cigna plan, 80 percent of those costs would be covered after the deductible was paid so that is less good than what we have now.

The Cigna plan would cover some procedures that are not covered now. Periodontics would be covered, with insurance paying 80 percent of the cost after the deductible. Bridges, dentures, crowns, and implants, not currently covered, would be with 50 percent of the costs paid after the deductible. So this is an improvement.

The Company has provided a comparison sheet of the two plans, which we’re sharing with you. Capital News Dental Comparison 2016

The Guild also learned that the proposed alternative medical plan would have a $3,000 deductible for singles. For couples and families, that deductible would be $6,000. We do not expect, and would not recommend, any couples or families to take this plan and we would caution any singles against doing so. The plan would be offered mainly to address the requirement under the Affordable Care Act that an “affordable” option be presented, with affordability based not on the size of the deductible but on the weekly cost.

Please see our previous bulletin for the earlier details we shared.