BY DAN
KENNEDY
Serving the reality-based community since 2002.
Notes and observations on
the press, politics, culture, technology, and more. To sign up for
e-mail delivery, click
here. To send
an e-mail to Dan Kennedy, click
here.
For bio, published work, and links to other blogs, visit
www.dankennedy.net.
Monday, July 12, 2004
GUILD AGREES TO GLOBE
CONTRACT. How long had Boston Globe newsroom employees
been working without a contract? Not long ago I ran into an old
colleague at a party. He'd been at the Globe for some time.
And he told me, laughing, that he'd never worked under a union
contract.
Until now - or, rather, soon. Today
the Globe and the Boston Newspaper Guild announced they had
reached a tentative agreement on a new five-year contract. Here's the
press release, in full:
BOSTON, MA - Monday, July
12, 2004 - The Boston Globe and the Boston Newspaper Guild, Local
31245, announced today that they have reached a tentative
agreement on a five-year labor pact covering a term from January
1, 2001 through December 31, 2005. The agreement is subject to
ratification by the union's rank and file membership scheduled for
August 5, 2004.
The wages for the first four
years reflect the pattern increases in place with the Globe's
other unions of approximately 7.5% in increases for Guild members
over that span. The newspaper and the union also negotiated a $12
per week increase for January 1, 2005 and a further $12.50 per
week increase on July 1, 2005, constituting an approximate
combined increase of 2.14 percent.
The new agreement provides
significant new operating flexibility for the Globe aimed at
making it more competitive in a changing media marketplace. In
return, the Globe agreed as a quid pro quo for such flexibility to
increases in funding for the Guild's Health Plan that will result
in significantly reduced health care payroll contributions by
Guild covered employees.
"The new agreement represents a
fair balancing of the competitive needs of the Globe in a changing
marketplace with the needs of our employees to have appropriate
protections with such changes as well as addressing the rising
health care costs impacting everyone," said Globe Senior Vice
President and lead company negotiator Greg Thornton. Steve
Richards, president of the Boston Newspaper Guild, said of the
tentative agreement: "It was a long and difficult negotiation but
the union's negotiating committee feels this tentative agreement
brings stability to our health fund, which was one of our primary
goals. We also feel it protects our members and our union while
giving the Globe added business flexibility."
Both the Globe and the Boston
Newspaper Guild declined to comment further on the pact until the
union's ratification meeting August 5. The agreement culminates
more than three and a half years of negotiations between the
parties.
It looks like the Globe, at
any rate, will have labor peace during the Democratic National
Convention. Would that Boston mayor Tom Menino - still tied up in an
ugly dispute with the Boston Police Patrolmen's Association - could
say the same.
But notice that three and a half
years of the Globe contract is retroactive, and that the
five-year period that it covers expires in just 17 months. Assuming
it gets ratified, it sounds like the negotiators ought to take maybe
a week off - and then return to the negotiating table.
posted at 5:09 PM |
0 comments
|
link
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
MEDIA LOG ARCHIVES
Dan Kennedy is senior writer and media critic for the Boston Phoenix.
