Circulation Grievances Advance
at Snail’s Pace

By Pat Gormley
Vice President, Contract Administration

One step forward and two steps back is the way grievance talks are moving with Buffalo News management.

Although settlements were reached over the $6 differential grievance for Editorial and Circulation; and a settlement on News 1/News 2 editor work in Editorial, progress seems to have taken a step backward with the pending arbitration for the unilateral transfer of a Circulation clerk having been rescheduled for a second time from Aug. 11 to Nov. 15 and 17. The original date for the arbitration was July 23.

In Circulation, the News has twice placed district managers on temporary assignment to management. In the first instance, the Guild filed a grievance over the assignment of a district manager to cover a division manager slot in the Dingens Street zone office.

The company refused to put the district manager’s district up for bid, pursuant to the contract. With the outstanding grievance on the table, The News did it again. The Guild asked the company to wait and discuss settlement on the first grievance before making the move.

The News went forward and assigned the second district manager to a “temporary” management vacancy.

The Guild’s position is the contract states any time a district manager is promoted into management, his or her district should be put up for bid.

The News’ position is it is justified in its actions based on temporary work assignment language, new to our current contract.

The temporary work assignment language in the contract is intended to cover new work assigned to bargaining unit members that could, after six months, come under Guild jurisdiction. It is not intended to allow the company to move bargaining unit members into and out of management at its whim.

Managerial work, under the National Labor Relations Act, cannot be bargaining unit, or union, work. Therefore, The News’ interpretation of the language is completely misguided.

Local members approved arbitrating this issue at a recent Local meeting. The issue will be submitted for arbitration to the TNG-CWA Legal Services program in Washington, D.C.

Another problem persists based on a conflict of interpretation regarding the extended sick leave language. This currently affects two employees, one in Classified and one in Circulation.

In order to access extended sick leave, employees must first use all accrued vacation time, sick time and floating holidays. Then the company will step in with the extended sick leave benefit. But, the company is saying that employees will also be charged with the vacation, sick and floating holidays accrued during the extended sick leave period. The contract states that all time accrued during the extended sick leave period shall be available to the employee upon their return to work.

This means that the Classified employee named in this grievance must work the entire year without taking any paid time off. The company used up all of her accrued benefits while she was on extended sick leave.

The Circulation employee, a district manager, was told that he was not entitled to six months of extended sick leave; that the total amount of leave, including the use of accrued time in the beginning, was six months.

When The News cut him off of his extended sick leave, he requested to open a New York State disability claim. He was told by The News and by the New York State Disability office that his disability benefits had been exhausted. The News had submitted a disability claim, unbeknownst to the employee. The News was therefore reimbursed the weekly $170 disability benefit.

The Local also approved arbitration on this issue through TNG-CWA Legal Services.

The Guild hopes that through further discussion the issue can be resolved to the benefit of all Guild employees.

There are other grievances and complaints in the pipe line:

A grievance was filed in August in Accounting for an employee who was denied unpaid time to care for an elderly parent. The contract, Article 28, Section 2, states that The News will grant unpaid leave to employees for the care of a dependent member of their immediate family or household.

Twice in the recent past, the Guild has won victories on similar grievances and yet The News still denied this employee her right to utilize unpaid time.

We continue to wait for a response to a work schedule grievance that arose out of the Jan. 4 snow emergency. Several employees had their shifts cancelled when The News shut down commercial operations at 3:30 p.m. on that day, even though these employees were ready and able to get to work

We are also seeking resolution on an issue related to bona fides and sick–time usage. The News contacted the secondary employer of a district manager who had called in sick. The company had already spoke to the individual at home while he was off sick.

Rather than ask for a doctor’s note or some other reasonable form of proof, the company unnecessarily contacted the district manager’s other employer. This is a long-time employee with no history of sick time abuse.

The Guild’s position is that this is an abuse of the company’s right to request bona fides in the case of illness.

The progress is slow and hard fought. The Guild has filed more grievances and has had to pursue more arbitrations than it has in the past 10 years.

This snail’s pace is intended to dissuade and frustrate us, but our resolve remains high. We have the benefit of a committed membership backed by a strong, active and concerned Local leadership, and national and international leadership through The Newspaper Guild-CWA. Guild-CWA leadership is willing to help with expertise and finances to combat these issues if need be. And, they already have.

Our unity is strength and our strength will bring us victory.