Unresolved Labor Disputes
at The News Piling Up

By Bob DiCesare
President

Is The Buffalo News making a concerted effort to frustrate and disable The Buffalo Newspaper Guild?
Laura Dudley, The News' director of human resources and deputy counsel, adamantly says it isn't so. But Guild officers aren't convinced. They met on May 12 to address the extreme -- and untraditional -- position The News had taken on a wide variety of contract issues.

The relationship has digressed to where The Guild envisions filing for arbitration on no less than six issues in 1999. Up until this point, The Guild and The News have gone to arbitration ONCE in the '90s. But the tension has been building. The Guild filed for arbitration three times last year but reached settlement on two of the issues beforehand, with one case dismissed.
The current issues of contention are numerous.
Two members of The Guild have been suspended without pay within the last two months. In the first of those cases, The News adjusted its position and said it intended to issue a one-month suspension. It was ultimately reduced to 3 1/2 days.
In the latter case, The News reacted to a situation involving two Guild members by suspending one of them indefinitely. This time, The News has delayed in defining the length of the term.
And now a few words on pregnancy and family leave, and other situations that might result in a member requesting a leave of absence. The News is suddenly ignoring past practice and seems determined to impose its will in matters concerning leave.
In one case, The News is attempting to restructure -- to our member's detriment -- a current leave which had been agreed to in writing. The News also is seeking to forbid mothers of newborns from taking eight months leave -- two months primary case, six months unpaid -- even though that has been the practice. Another member was denied the contractual right to take unpaid leave to care for sick parents and there is yet another leave case that has resulted in conflict.
Guild officers also are troubled by repeated incidents in inside circulation. The Guild had filed an anti-union animus grievance concerning a manager's harsh treatment of a Guild officer and was assured during a subsequent meeting with The News that this behavior would cease. Such behavior by a manager constitutes coercion and harassment of a union representative under provisions of the National Labor Relations Act.
But the manager's behavior in regard to our Local officer has not changed.  The officer was recently harassed again, forcing the Guild to file another grievance. An unfair labor practice charge also will be filed with the NLRB.
The same manager was the subject of a past grievance for harassing union officers. The Guild was told the manager would issue an apology but that promise, six weeks old, has yet to be kept.
Other issues remain unresolved. The News said some six weeks ago it would reply to The Guild concerning two other grievances that had been submitted. One of the grievances concerns employees who were told not to come to work by their supervisors during a heavy snowfall,  then were docked a personal day, or forced to take the day without pay.  The other grievance concerns part-timers in the classified department who have been told that if they take vacation during a week that included a paid holiday they in essence forfeit their right to that holiday.
In neither case has The News provided the response it promised.
The Guild also is in the process of filing no less than three additional grievances in the circulation department.
The grievances are piling up. The likelihood of multiple arbitration cases is great.
Is The News making a concerted effort to frustrate and disable The Buffalo Newspaper Guild?
It's hard to ignore the evidence.
But we will not let them succeed.