News Will Expand Use of Part-Time Reporters
Added Staff’s Main Assignment
Will Be Covering Suburbs

The Buffalo News will hire five part-time reporters to cover suburban news and another part-timer to work in Niagara County as part of a tentative agreement reached last month with the Buffalo Newspaper Guild.

Under the agreement, The News will have the flexibility to use the new part-timers in sports and features but the majority of their work must be local news coverage.

"The News is going to do the one thing it said it couldn't do - hire more staff" - Phil Fairbanks Free Lance Committee Chair

The agreement ends nearly a year of bargaining over staffing in the newsroom, the quality of The News' suburban coverage and its increasing reliance on free lance writers to cover the suburbs. The Guild filed two grievances over those issues in April of last year.

The settlement also addresses The News' demand for flexibility in assigning newsroom staff members and its stand that the newsroom was not in a position to hire more local news reporters.

"The News is going to do the one thing it said it couldn't do - hire more staff," said Phil Fairbanks, chairperson of the Guild's Free Lance Committee. "The number of new hires isn't large enough to solve the newsroom's understaffing problems, but this agreement does give The News the ability to improve its local news coverage in the suburbs."

The agreement also promotes three existing part-time reporters in Niagara County who are paid at a lower wage rate, and allows The News to use them to work in other parts of the region. The three Niagara County part-timers will now receive the same hourly wage rate as other regular reporters.

As part of the settlement, newsroom managers will have greater flexibility when it comes to bargaining unit work. It allows excluded editors to do some copy editing on an occasional basis, as long as it does not reduce overtime or eliminate Guild positions.

“This arrangement is a far cry from The News’ original demand, which was to allow all excluded employees to perform any Guild work at will, or on an “ad hoc” basis,” said Marian Needham, the Guild’s chief negotiator. “The agreement we’ve reached on editing functions is not much different from existing practices, and much more acceptable to our members.”

The agreement also preserves most of the work done by the assistant news editor as Guild work, and restores the position of chief photographer to the bargaining unit.

Editor Murray Light, in commenting on the stringer settlement, assured the Guild that the new part-time reporters will do the type of work previously done by free lancers in the suburbs.

"That's the only way I could justify hiring those new part-time reporters," Light told the Guild bargaining team.

Both sides agreed that the settlement does not prevent The News from using stringers and free lancers as long as their use does not conflict with the collective bargaining agreement.

The expansion of extended sick leave to all unit members is the next major item on the bargaining agenda.