Negotiators Reach Agreement
on Thorny Leave Issues
Extended Sick Leave Expanded;
Primary Care Leave Preserved

Extended sick leave benefits will become available to all Guild members under a tentative agreement reached in bargaining with The Buffalo News last month.

The agreement satisfies one of the Guild's most important long-term goals - eliminating a system that provides better sick leave benefits to higher-paid people while withholding those same benefits from members who earn less money.

In return, Guild negotiators agreed to a slight reduction in the amount of sick time that can be used during primary care leave.

"Straightening this inequity out is a major relief to me," said local president Sina Williams. "It's a perfect example of doing something because it's the right thing to do."

The extended sick leave provisions allow members a total of six months paid leave during protracted illnesses or treatment for injuries. The leave is expanded to twelve months if the cause of the illness or injury is work-related.

The benefit has its root in practices developed when the paper was owned by the Butler family. When Warren Buffett purchased the paper in 1977, he agreed to continue the benefit, which was available only to district managers, reporters, columnists, photographers, artists and editors, (newsroom groups A-D). The policy, with the coverage limitations, was added to the contract during 1993 negotiations.

The tentative agreement will expand the extended sick leave provisions to include customer service, inside circulation, accounting and classified advertising, as well as editorial clerical groups.

"This is a huge gain for a largely female segment of our union that will no longer be made to feel like second-class citizens," said Jerry Sullivan, editorial vice chair.

Extended sick leave provisions contain some limitations that were described in the May 15 bargaining bulletin. The detailed policy also can be found in Article 14, Section 7 of the contract.

In exchange for expanding the extended sick leave policy, negotiators agreed to a slight reduction in the amount of sick time that can be taken during primary care leaves.

The current contract allows employees up to two months of primary care leave to care for a newborn or newly-adopted child. Employees can access vacation, floats and sick leave in any combination they choose (Article 28, Section 3).

Throughout bargaining, The News sought to change primary care leave to require employees to use all of their vacation during a leave, and then allow access to only 5 days of sick leave.

The Guild repeatedly rejected that proposal, not only because of the shift from sick leave to vacation days, but also because it would cut by at least one-third the length of time an employee could be on paid leave.

Under the tentative agreement, employees who take primary care leave will be required to take one day of vacation for every four days of sick leave. Contractual primary care leave is limited to eight weeks, so an employee who takes the full leave would be required to use at least 8 vacation days in order to draw 32 sick leave days. If an employee took five weeks of leave, he or she would be required to take 5 days of vacation in order to access 20 days of sick leave. Employees can use floats and holidays to meet the vacation requirement.

Birth mothers will be allowed to supplement their state disability payments with vacation. If she chooses to take vacation during the disability period, the vacation she draws will be credited toward the vacation requirements for primary care leave.

Existing provisions that require parents who begin a leave more than 4 months after the birth or adoption of a child to use greater amounts of vacation will be eliminated.

"I think we made a good compromise," said Carol Ann Burke, inside circulation vice chair. "We were able to beat back the company's proposals to limit sick leave use to 5 days during primary care leave, and many of our members already use vacation time while on leave."