Guild Executive Board member Tim Neff is among the current honorees for the Publisher’s Quarterly Award for Excellence.

It is no surprise to his colleagues that Tim does great work, and we are grateful the Times Union recognized him. It just shows that you can take great pride in your work and be active in the union.

Here’s what the company said about Tim:

“During a dramatic downsizing of our staff, Tim has gone above and beyond to make sure that timesunion.com not only succeeds but stands out among all Hearst news sites. During the past few months, our site has seen phenomenal growth, and much of that is due directly to Tim’s efforts.”

Associate editor Mike Spain, one of the newsroom’s top managers, said: “Tim’s knowledge and experience in our newsroom operation combined with his skills in the digital platform have made him one of our biggest assets. The evidence of this is our continued climb in online audience.”

Go Team leader Mike Goodwin, another newsroom manager, said this about Tim: “To understand Tim Neff’s impact on the website, you need to simply look at the traffic numbers from a recent week he was on vacation. Traffic was down on several days. Tim is always easy to work with and suggests plenty of ideas for the Go Team and the newsroom. But he also creates plenty of content on his own, photo galleries and such, that help fatten the numbers.”

As the company wrote: The negative impact when Tim is away was echoed by city editor Teresa Buckley: “I’ve never heard so many people ask when someone is returning from vacation as when Tim took time off over the summer. There is a different air when he is around. It’s not so much his outward energy, but the knowledge that he’s cooking up ways to drive traffic, creating galleries or enhancing packages, and asking the newsroom to put together the key elements that bring in readers.”

Tim works in an area that has seen a sharp reduction in staff, from nine full-time employees to four.

Hearst executives Steve Swartz, Mark Aldam and Lincoln Millstein have praised the website’s outstanding performance, the company said.
Editor Rex Smith, the newsroom’s top manager, said in the company bulletin: “Tim is the very model of a journalist who has adapted to our changing professional environment. What’s admirable is that as he has shifted from a print-based job to a digital role, with all the learning about technology and new modes of content presentation that such a change requires, he has not wavered a bit in his devotion to high standards. He’s a thoughtful journalist and a valued colleague.”

Tim joined the Executive Board this year after his colleague Mark Ramirez left for a job in New Jersey. We’re proud of the work Tim does with the Guild, and we’re especially proud to see his hard work at the Times Union recognized.

The Times Union owes 11 workers the company illegally laid off in 2009 about $600,000 in back wages, the National Labor Relations Board has determined.

That figure is actually low, the NLRB said, because it does not include pension accruals that the board says are owed to the 11. Interest on the debt continues to compound daily so that the actual number is already over $600,000.

One worker who has not yet found a job is owed more than $105,000. Another is owed more than $98,000. A third is owed more than $80,000.

“From the moment the Times Union began illegally laying off these workers, we put the company on notice that their actions were illegal and we would have no choice but to stand up for our members,” Guild President Tim O’Brien said. “The company made a choice to continue to break the law. It made a choice to waste tens of thousands of dollars on a losing legal appeal, only to see the decision upheld by the board in Washington, D.C. And now the time has come where the company is about to pay the price for actions it chose to take. ”

The NRLB is launching its enforcement process to require the Times Union to pay the debt that is owed. Part of the order also calls for those workers to be restored to the payroll and for the Times Union to do what we asked it to do in the first place: bargain in good faith over layoffs.

The court process can take six months to a year, but it is the final step in this long, drawn-out case.

Some of the laid-off workers have never found work. Others have worked more than one job to make ends meet. Some have suffered hits to what their pensions would have been.

The NLRB issued its findings on how much money is owed in late August. The union made a decision not to publicize those findings immediately as our intent has always been to try to negotiate a settlement not only of the legal case but of the contract.

The parties met Wednesday for off-the-record discussions, but they did not bear fruit. The Guild continues to insist that any settlement must be fair to the 11 illegally laid off workers and give our members the contract that is long overdue.

Members of the Guild approved the switch to the Blue Shield of Northeastern New York plan for next year.

Turnout was light as many viewed the new health care plan as similar, and in some ways better, than the existing plan.

The final tally was 40-4.

You can read our earlier report on the proposal here.

And if you’d like to look up information on whether your doctor participates, you can search here.

The Times Union has received enough buyout responses that involuntary layoffs will not be necessary, publisher George Hearst said today.

Sixteen people – including some from the exempt ranks – applied for buyouts, Hearst said.

“We have probably nine of those we can accept,” the publisher said. “Of the nine, there are five in the newsroom.”

In editorial, three Guild members and two exempt employees are likely to receive the buyout.

Hearst said that those numbers were sufficient so that no layoffs would be necessary.

“We are very glad to hear that only voluntary buyouts will occur,” Guild President Tim O’Brien said. “While we hate to see the size of the staff shrink any further, we also prefer our members to leave voluntarily with extra money in their pockets than to be laid off.”

Guild members will vote Tuesday on the proposed switch to a new health care plan. The vote will be from noon to 2 p.m. and 5-7 p.m. in the Executive Conference Room.

The company’s proposal involves moving to a Blue Shield of Northeastern New York plan. The Guild’s executive board recommends a yes vote.

In most ways, the two plans are similar. The deductible will stay at $750, and the company will cover the rest of the deductible up to $2,000 for an individual and $4,000 for a family. Once that cap is reached, people will pay up to 10 percent of their medical costs with a cap again of $2,000 for an individual and $4,000 for a family. Medical expenses after that are fully covered.

The main difference with the Blue Shield plan is that rather than pay 10 percent for office, urgent care and emergency room visits, employees would pay a flat $20 for office visits, $50 for urgent care visits and $75 for emergency room visits.

In many cases, especially doctor visits, that flat fee might be more expensive than the 10 percent would be. Those payments, however, would be counted toward the cap under the 90/10 split. That means the maximum liability for an employee would not increase.

In addition, medications would also count toward the cap under the 90/10 split, which is not the case under the current plan. For members with chronic illnesses that require regular medication, this could lower costs a bit.

The out-of-pocket cost for the employee share would rise a little over $2 a week – a total of $107 for the year. This figure includes both medical and dental coverage. The weekly contribution would rise from the current $35.70 a week to $37.76.

Employees must be members in good standing to be eligible to vote, which means either paid up in dues or signed up for a payment plan. You can pay back dues right before voting.