Grieving Slowly

By Patrick Gormley
Vice President Contract Administration

Grievance discussions with The News continue to creep along at a snail’s pace. Now it appears that the sole tactic of The News is to stall. It wasn’t that long ago that The News saw arbitration as a failure of the grievance process, now it seems to relish the idea.

This obstructionist attitude reared its ugly head recently when Local Service Representative Tina Destro asked to speak to Sheila Benevento in benefits to try to clarify information for a member and was told by The News that as an outside union representative she did not have the right to call and speak to anyone at The News. This is totally against everything that the Guild, and The News, have worked hard for in the past – to establish an atmosphere of mutual cooperation and respect.

The Guild continues to wait for information from The News that is necessary for the grievance investigation process into the dispute over extended sick leave.

This issue now directly affects three Guild employees. A district manager involved in this grievance has been without pay since June 13. This employee, and the Guild, assumed he had a full six months of extended sick leave, beyond accrued time used. He was cut off before that time. When he attempted to file for New York State Disability, the Guild found that the company filed a disability claim for this employee, unbeknownst to the employee! The News collected the disability benefit while the employee was on extended sick leave.

Prior to filing with TNG-CWA Legal Services for arbitration on the sick leave issue, the Guild plans to have one more grievance meeting with the company.

There are still many other issues that have been on the table for months. As always, we will look toward resolution.

On September 10, the arbitration over a racial discrimination grievance filed in Classified advertising concluded. Briefs from attorneys on both sides are due to the arbitrator by October 15. At this time, we do not have a time frame on a final decision from the arbitrator.