Buffalo Newspaper Guild Home Page
Members Call for More Job Actions
Residential Picketing Among the Options
Approved
by James T. Madore
Editor-in-Chief
Guild members at The Buffalo News approved resolutions last month that call
for increased workplace strategies, including demonstrations in front of
the homes of top News executives.
The rank-and-file - in two separate unit meetings held Sept. 17 and 18 -
authorized the local to engage in several job actions designed to put pressure
on The Buffalo News to negotiate a new contract. Guild members currently
are working under the terms of the 1993-96 contract, which expired in July.
Phil Fairbanks, workplace strategies coordinator, had not intended to have
the membership vote on picketing News executives' homes until later in the
year. But people attending the Sept. 17 meeting said they were ready to vote,
and then overwhelmingly adopted a resolution calling for picketing, if the
bargaining team determines such action is required.
Of the more than 170 members who attended both meetings, only three opposed
the idea of residential picketing. Fairbanks emphasized that the tactic only
will be done as a last resort.
"If you send them in alone, unarmed to beg for a contract, it isn't going
to work," he said, referring to the bargaining team. "To get a good contract
it's up to all of you. The real bargaining doesn't occur on the fifth floor,
it occurs in the workplace."
Fairbanks recalled that previous demonstrations by the membership in the
community were key to resolving disputes with The News over pension benefits,
shifting the cost of health insurance to employees and eliminating contractual
job security language.
"We were successful because the membership was involved and won a good contract
for themselves," Fairbanks said.
The most recent job action was a Sept. 22 leafleting of the Buffalo Bills-Dallas
Cowboys game, complete with an airplane that flew over Rich Stadium with
a banner reading
$$ The Buffalo News - Greed All About It $$
The game day activities are part of the Guild's public campaign to educate
readers about the newspaper's treatment of its employees. They came after
a series of inside actions that included table tents, buttons, a letter to
Publisher Stan Lipsey, leafleting the downtown office and many bargaining
bulletins.
"It's now time to go public," Fairbanks said.
Future workplace strategies by the local may include a by-line strike, public
rally, informational picketing, and passing out leaflets in front of businesses
that advertise in The News, at public events and in the suburbs that are
covered by stringers/freelancers.
"I know a lot of this sounds extreme. But what we are facing from The News
is so draconian, we may have to do even more to get a good contract," Fairbanks
said.
Job actions was just one of the issues raised during the Buffalo News unit
meetings. A standing-room-only crowd spent two hours Sept. 17 receiving an
update on the status of negotiations.
Local president Sina Williams said one of the reasons deliberations by the
full bargaining teams have dragged on, is that departmental talks pushed
back the schedule.
She summed up The News' contract proposals as "regressive." The company wants
to drastically change the Guild's jurisdiction, the relationship between
workers and supervisors and job duties, she said.
Both Williams and chief negotiator Marian Needham explained that News management
has been vague and general in many of it discussions with the union. In some
cases, union negotiators have had to repeatedly ask for more detailed information
and the rational behind various management concepts.
"We're frustrated because we are meeting vague proposals from the company
that deal with our futures," Williams said.
She also released data on the impact of The News' proposal to reduce the
number of credits employees receive to purchase medical and dental
insurance.
Single workers currently receive $2,124, and can purchase four out of the
six medical plans, plus the least expensive dental coverage without any
out-of-pocket costs.
Workers receive $4,999 for family coverage, and can purchase five out of
the six medical plans and dental coverage with no additional costs.
Only 21 Guild members currently have to pay for a portion of their medical
and dental coverage.
Under the company's revised Flex plan, all the medical plans would require
contributions from singles. Family coverage would remain affordable, but
only if you have Independent Health or Health Care Plan; all of the other
plans would require out-of-pocket expenses.
Williams reported that News managers are upset that Guild members switched
to less expensive benefit plans and pocketed their excess flex credits. The
company claims that $700,000 if excess flex credits has been paid to Guild
members during the last three years.
"You chose less expensive plans and took the extra money as a raise. Now
they want it back," she said.
Needham, in response to a question, said there is no immediate danger of
The News-Guild negotiations reaching an impasse, and the company imposing
its last best offer. The National Labor Relations Board doesn't consider
an impasse to have occurred without a lot more bargaining than what has happened
so far at The News.
"If they were going to do that, it would be quite a way down the road," Needham
said. I don't think impasse is a threat right now."
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