Shift In Focus
Aids Wage Talks

News Drops Demand for Zero Year

Guild members may not have to take some lumps in a new contract with The Buffalo News. After several negotiating sessions with a private mediator, the focus of the bargaining has changed, with The News dropping its insistence that the first year of the contract include a lump sum payment, rather than a regular percentage pay raise.

Yet The News also has been adamant that the annual pay raises in the contract add up to no more than 13 percent over the six-year life of the agreement, said Marian Needham, the Buffalo Newspaper Guild's chief negotiator.

"I think there is some measure of progress in that they're not insisting on a zero" percent pay raise in one year of the contract, Needham said.

Needham said she thinks there is a good chance that a tentative contract settlement could be reached in early September.

Guild officials said the recent developments in the contract talks, which now have dragged on for 13 months since the old agreement expired, offer some good news for Guild members, but also have some disappointing elements.

The good news, she said, is that The News has backed away from its insistence on a lump sum in the first year of the agreement. Instead, negotiators are talking about a percentage increase, supplemented by a one-time signing bonus.

The signing bonus would be made up of two elements: a percentage of a member's base pay, plus a set amount for each member. In contrast, a lump sum, which Guild negotiators had adamantly opposed, would provide members with a one-time payment in place of an annual percentage pay raise.

"We're looking at regular annual increases on Aug. 1 of each year, " Needham said, "although those numbers aren’t as high as we had hoped to achieve."

But News negotiators have been steadfast in their insistence that the total value of the annual pay raises not exceed 13 percent over six years. The News also refused to change the way the annual pay raises are calculated to base them off of the previous year's wages. Instead, The News is insisting that the annual raises be calculated in the traditional way based on the last year of the previous contract.

"The bad news is that the numbers still aren't high enough," said Tom Dolan, the editorial vice chairman and a member of the negotiating committee.

"The bargaining committee and the local leaders aren't going to be happy with the 13 percent. It's up to the members to decide if it's acceptable, " Needham said.

" I don't believe this is moving toward a just settlement," Dolan said. "But this isn't about justice. The company has turned it into power negotiating."