If the Guild pension plan is to be merged with the Company’s plan as proposed, it is an action that can only be taken by one group: the membership.

Section 14.C. of the contract, on page 32, states: “The Fund will be maintained in accordance with applicable law as a jointly administered trust fund…” This language remains in effect, and the Company made no proposal to alter it in our negotiations.

The only way that a merger can be approved is if it is negotiated with the union and a change to that language is ratified by the membership. You get to decide.

That was the legal advice provided by our counsel, Barbara Camens, after the meeting Wednesday. We are still awaiting a written proposal from the Company.

Ms. Camens made clear that the pension trustees would be in violation of the contract and the law if they voted to move the plan without a vote of the membership. Unfortunately, some of our trustees were poised to do just that. As a result, we made the heart-renching decision to remove two of them.

One of the two was told repeatedly that a vote of the membership should be done, and this person instead insisted this was an action that could be unilaterally taken by the trustees. That is not true and goes against the advice of our counsel, our contract language and the best interests of our membership.

Some have expressed the belief that this step was taken in order to prevent the merger from happening. This is not true. We are still awaiting the Company’s written proposal, we will review it with our attorneys and we will respond appropriately.

In the end, neither the Executive Board nor the trustees will make this decision. Only the membership has the authority to do it. It’s in your hands.

Guild pension trustees reached a conceptual agreement Wednesday with the Company to merge the union pension plan with a company one.

The decision was not an easy one to make. With the fund likely to face shortfalls of $1 million or more a year starting in 2011, the trustees had a choice between facing making cuts to the benefits or hoping that the move to the more solidly financed company plan would help retain benefits into the future.

The decision won’t be final into an agreement is reached on the exact language. The Guild has scheduled an informational meeting at 12:30 p.m. Friday, Dec. 11, at the Colonie Town Library to discuss the decision with members.

The Company was willing to guarantee pension benefits only for the next two years, through Dec. 31, 2011.

“This was a difficult decision for the trustees to reach. We did it after much debate and consultation with Guild Local President Tim O’Brien and International officers and staff,” trustee Ken Crowe said. “Our goal has always been to preserve our pension benefits going forward.”

Under federal law, pension benefits earned to date, and under the agreement over the next two years, are protected and cannot be reduced.

“I want to thank the trustees for all their efforts,” Guild President Tim O’Brien said. “It is not easy to have to decide what  to do to best secure your colleagues’ pensions for as long as you can.”

Besides Crowe, the other trustees are Mark Corelli, Christine Wright and John Runfola. They were joined Wednesday by O’Brien, Chief Steward Ray Pitlyk and Melissa Nelson, collective bargaining director for the Guild International and a past Albany president and pension trustee.

Employees will pay 43 percent more each week for health insurance next year.

According to numbers given to the Guild Thursday, the weekly cost for the MVP plan will rise about $10 a week. Employees now pay $23.72. The giant leap in health care costs to employees  is largely due to the whopping 5 percent rise in the employee’s share imposed by the Company.

“The insurance brokers, Rowlands and Barranca, did an excellent job keeping the year to year costs of health insurance down,” Guild President Tim O’Brien said. The firm contained the premium increase to 8.9 percent.

Under the contract imposed by the Company, however, employees’ share of health-care costs will increase from 16 percent to 21 percent. Had the employee share stayed the same, our members would be paying only $2 more next year.

“At a time when our members are getting no raise, this is a very difficult hit to take,” O’Brien said. “It is especially upsetting after Publisher George Hearst broke his promise to employees and eliminated the $500 bonus after his contract proposal was defeated. That bonus would not have even covered the increased cost of health care.”

The Company said the health-care share for workers is about $2 less than it was in 2008, but that figure leaves out the fact that employees were not paying a $750 upfront deductible that year. If all used by an employee, that adds $14.43 to the weekly cost.

The deductible will remain at $750 for 2010.

One other worrisome aspect of what MVP had planned has been eliminated for now. The health care firm had said it would force employees who get name-brand drugs when a generic is available to pay both the generic co-pay and the cost difference between the generic and name-brand drugs. That would have cost some employees hundreds of dollars per perscription and potentially thousands of dollars a year.

MVP retreated from that position, and we’re grateful to Rowlands and Barranca for that, although the Guild was told MVP expects to push that issue again in 2011. MVP also retreated on a proposal to increase the co-pay for mail-order drugs.

The Guild is awaiting final confirmation of all the health-care numbers, and it will release a bulletin on this issue early next week.

The New York Post writes that the Hearst Corp. is sitting on a $1 billion war chest. Read it and weep as you pay 5 percent more for your health costs come January 1. (We will meet with the Company at 3:30 p.m. Thursday to discuss health care costs.)

The Guild met Friday with the Company to discuss two issues: the merger of advertising art and marketing operations and the Company’s illegally imposed parking rule changes.

The Guild had questions about the recent merger of the two subdepartments, especially since advertising artists are paid in Class C while marketing media specialists are paid in Class B. The Guild has written a letter which will go out to these workers Wednesday. You can read it here.

As for the parking issue, Publisher George Hearst angrily said the matter is not a mandatory subject of bargaining. If given a proposal by the Guild, he said he’d be under no obligation to consider it or to negotiate. While we had discussed making a proposal, we will not do so unless and until the Company acknowledges it has a legal obligation to negotiate.

It’s not legal, of course, for the Company to impose new rules that could result in your car being towed or you being hit up for a replacement fee without negotiation. We were willing to bargain what should be a simple issue. It’s unfortunate, but the issue will have to go to the National Labor Relations Board.

In the meantime, we recommend putting your tag on the rearview mirror while the case is heard. That does not mean the Guild has agreed to the policy. And if any employee has his or her car towed in the interim, we will argue the Company should pay for it and for any damages to the vehicle.