and nomination of officers for election to all Executive Board seats

time: 12:30 pm
date: Thursday, Sept. 12, 2013
location: Colonie Town Library

The Guild will hold its annual membership meeting September 12 at the library. This year, all seven seats on the Executive Board are up for election, and nominations will be made at the meeting or can be done via petition.

The positions are: President, Secretary, Treasurer, Chief Steward and the First, Second and Third Vice Presidents.

Members must be in good standing to run for office and to attend the nomination meeting. If you want to check your standing, contact the Guild office at 518-466-8700 or by email 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.

Terms are for three years beginning January 1, 2014 except the person elected President would take office immediately after the election. The position of Second Vice President is being vacated because Tim Neff is leaving the newspaper. If there is only candidate to that post, the person will take office effective immediately.

Nominations for any office may be from the floor, by petition or in the form of a slate of candidates. 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 or 5 percent of the Local’s membership, whichever is greater. Individuals signing a petition must be members in good standing as of September 30 preceding the election. 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.

• Come and grab a slice of pie at 12:30 pm in the Cafeteria
• Change your Twitter and Facebook avatars to:

• Follow and share our tweets and write some of you own
(include #timesunion and #6years0raises)

Please join us Monday, July 25 at 12pm over at the Colonie Town Library to discuss your concerns in the Advertising Department.

“Belonging to a Union means you have to participate and join together to win the battles being fought”
– William Devore

How should we mark the occasion?

A raise is long overdue. Our members deserve one for our hard work, our dedication and our continued willingness to do more with less. Our health care costs and expenses have gone up, so we are rapidly losing ground. And as we recently (and accidentally) were able to see, this company has a profit margin any other business would envy.

If you have an idea how to mark this anniversary, email us at office@albanyguild.org.

Local Edge workers to become employees
Guild to represent them; no more separate staff selling SEO

The Guild learned Tuesday that employees who have been working for Local Edge and selling ads into the Times Union will become Guild-represented employees.

Two of the employees are being let go by Local Edge, while the other four will join the Times Union officially effective July 1, Human Resources Director Ruth Fantasia told the union. The Company recognized that the Guild would have rights to represent them as part of the bargaining unit.

Local Edge was the successor to the Talking Phone Book. When Hearst got out of the telephone book business, it kept the staff and had its employees sell search engine optimization. While the Guild had always watched closely to be sure that Local Edge’s efforts did not displace any of our positions, outsourcing that would have required negotiation, we are glad these workers will become part of the operation and will welcome them aboard.

What will Obamacare mean for 2014?

Leaders of the Guild, mailers and pressmen’s union met with the Company Tuesday for a preliminary discussion of what the health care changes that take effect in 2014 could mean.

Of most immediate interest is the plan’s stipulation that large employers either provide affordable coverage or pay a penalty. The “affordability” standard is that individual premium rates may not be more than 9.5% of an employee’s total household income. The Company raised a concern that it’s possible a Guild employee could meet that threshold. If an employee did and sought to buy coverage through a state-based health insurance exchange, an employer could face a penalty of $3,000 per employee who receives the federal subsidy.

The health plan administrator, Rowlands and Barranca, said some employers may choose to offer multiple choices so that at least one of them meets the standards.

All of this discussion was interesting but changes may be made before the plan takes effect or its effective dates could be changed. The Guild and other unions appreciated the information presented Tuesday, and the conversations will resume in detail in the fall when more information is known.