Romenesko Misc.
The deal calls for the Washington Post to give all Guild-covered employees a $13 per week raise and an immediate signing bonus of $500 for full-time employees and $350 for less than 30 hour part-timers. The union says in a letter to members:

We believe that this tentative agreement represents the best possible deal at a time when the U.S. economy is shaky, the outlook for the industry is uncertain and many former Guild members have left the newspaper. We also believe that this round of labor talks has shown that the Post appears to be moving further toward making short-term gains at the expense of long-term survival.

Guild letter

July 20, 2011

Guild Reaches Tentative Agreement with Post

Ratification Vote Set for Wednesday, July 27 at 12 Noon, 1 PM, and 7 PM Meetings at Guild Office

Dear Friends,

The Post and the Guild have reached tentative agreement on a two-year contract after more than three months of negotiations. Here are the main points:

WAGES
For the first time since 2008, the Post has agreed to give all Guild-covered employees a $13 per week raise. This is also the first time in memory that the Post has agreed to a raise in the beginning of the first year of the contract.
Full-time employees would also receive a $1,200 lump sum after twelve months; less than 30 hour part-timers would get $800.

All Guild-covered employees would also receive an immediate signing bonus of $500 for full-time employees and $350 for less than 30 hour part-timers.

On top of these across-the-board increases and payouts, all Class A Circulation Drivers would receive an additional wage increase of 50 cents an hour.

LAYOFFS
The Post aimed at the heart of the Guild’s job security protections by demanding the unchallengeable right to lay certain people off permanently. That is, the Post wanted to eliminate the Guild’s right to challenge layoffs that appear to be motivated by reasons other than economy and an employee’s right to return to work if conditions improved. This could have given the Post the ability to get rid of employees it simply didn’t like under the pretext of coping with a bad economy and only “reconsider” giving them their jobs back later. In effect, this would have allowed the Post to treat Guild-covered members almost like “at will” employees who have little or no job security and eroded the protections in the contract that say the company can only let someone go for economic conditions or for “just cause,” such as performance or disciplinary reasons. The Guild kept this out of the contract and preserved largely seniority-based layoffs with recall rights.

MORE FLEXIBLE OUTSOURCING -- BUT WITH ENHANCED SEVERANCE
Hard as we tried, we were not able to preserve the contract provision that said the Post must offer you a comparable job if they outsourced yours. But we saw to it that employees who are laid off will receive an enhanced severance package on a par with recently negotiated buyouts, including at least three weeks’ severance pay for every year of service. Employees with more than 10 years of service would receive company-paid health care insurance for one year; those who have fewer than 10 years’ service would receive six months’ coverage. The current contract offers two weeks’ severance pay per year of service for employees—which the Post had sought to halve.

SENIORITY
The Post sought to further erode employees’ seniority rights, demanding sole discretion to exempt up to half the workers in affected areas targeted for layoffs. The Post also demanded the right to assume almost total control over the process by defining what those “work areas” would be. Instead, the Post has agreed to a minor clarification of the publisher’s existing right to exempt from layoffs up to 25 percent of the employees in an affected area: in groups of four or fewer employees targeted for layoffs, the Post would now have the right to exclude one employee from layoffs, regardless of seniority. The Guild also retained its right to challenge the Post’s definition of a “work area.”

We believe that this tentative agreement represents the best possible deal at a time when the U.S. economy is shaky, the outlook for the industry is uncertain and many former Guild members have left the newspaper. We also believe that this round of labor talks has shown that the Post appears to be moving further toward making short-term gains at the expense of long-term survival.

But this much is certain: given the Post’s initial demands, this agreement would have been much less favorable without the hard work of those Guild members who stood together, became more active, joined the pickets or simply paid their dues.

The Guild fights for everyone – do you fight for the Guild?

Further details on the tentative agreement can be found at the Guild’s Facebook page and www.PostGuild.org. The Guild will also review the provisions of the proposed contract at the Guild’s ratification meetings on Wednesday July 27. We invite all Guild-covered members to attend, but only dues-paying Guild members have the right to vote on ratification. Non-members are encouraged to join the Guild at the door.

– Guild Bargaining Committee:
Freddy Kunkle, Darlene Meyer, Nikita Stewart, Mike Gronowski, Chris Hettinger, James Crudup, Rick Ehrmann, Bruce Nelson