By Ed Fletcher
Bee Guild Now

A subcommittee of The Guild’s negotiating team met with Bee management Tuesday, March 2, to focus on issues affecting advertising employees.

Here are the key issues:

Company wants to remove contract provision stipulating that goals be set so that at least 50 percent of salespeople in each category are able to reach goal. The company is proposing to:

•  move back the date on which goals are set, from 45 days from the start of the quarter to 15 days prior to the start;
•  adjust the bonus payout date from the 15^th of the month to the next pay period; and
• modify the evaluation criteria to emphasize the marketing of various products.

Linda Brooks, the vice president for human resources, said the “Kackley Plan” is working well for the majors and national sales desks. But it’s been less successful for retail, where there  is much more turnover, and for classified, where the advertising slide makes it harder to set goals.

The high washout rate among retail hires has complicated goal setting among that group, Brooks said. She said the company has recently taken steps to better identify job candidates who will be successful salespeople.

She said without the provision it still would be in the company’s best interests to set goals that are attainable,  to keep the sales staff selling and to decrease turnover.

As for the need to move back the goal-setting date, Brooks said the later date would allow goals to better reflect business realities.

The requirement that bonuses be computed by the 15^th of the month has meant that in some cases, bonuses are sent to payroll in India before salespeople and their managers have had a chance to reconcile what the bonuses should be. For instance in April, payroll needs to be submitted by April 12, while the contract prescribed date to review the bonus comes on April 15.

Brooks said 2010 would put an added emphasis on selling a variety of products – from new Web site placements to new print products. That emphasis should be reflected in evaluations, she said.

Present for The Guild were: Ed Fletcher, Randy Harie and Darren Carroll

Representing the company were: Linda Brooks, Norine Mullen and Linda Stovall.

McClatchy attorney Bob Ford canceled contract negotiating sessions scheduled for today and Wednesday. The next sessions are planned March 29 & 30. To date the company has canceled five of the last eight scheduled  sessions.

Interesting case in which several high-profile journalists agreed to work for the Church of Scientology — to investigate a newspaper. The church paid them to probe coverage of the church by the St. Petersburg Times.

One of the journalists hired by the church is former Bee investigative reporter Russell Carollo.

By Niesha Lofing
Bee Guild Now

At the latest round of contract negotiations between The Guild and management,  company negotiators moved away from their proposal seeking unlimited authority to turn full-time employees into part-timers.

Instead, Guild negotiators were told that there are “a small number of positions that could be converted from full-time to part-time,” but the exact number is not yet known, company attorney Bob Ford said. The company said it hoped to present Guild leaders with those numbers during the next bargaining session, scheduled for March 2 at the DoubleTree Hotel, where Tuesday’s session was held.

While specifics aren’t yet known, Ford said the company is “trying to protect the positions of full-time employees,” but at the same time is trying to respond to a changing industry in a lagging economy.

“Given the way the industry is going, there are things we need to do to make sure we maintain a viable enterprise,” he said.

The company laid out some parameters:

• The company would make every attempt to give part-timers enough hours to make the job eligible for benefits.
• Full-timers within job classifications targeted for part-time conversion would have first crack at the part-time opportunity, before the company compels any particular employee to take a reduction in hours. 
• Full-timers who decline part-time employment would be eligible for a severance package.

Given the fact that many of the details are contingent upon the ongoing reorganization, The Guild declined to offer detailed thoughts on management’s revised position.

In other action, The Guild and the company reached a tentative agreement preserving contract language that gives sick leave benefits to part-timers who work at least 22.5 hours a week and have worked for the company for at least six months.

Tentative agreement also was reached in the arena of vacations. The proposal would cap the number of vacation days Guild-covered employees can bank. The deal would limit the number of days to no more than one week over the employee’s annual entitlement. (An employee who gets four weeks of vacation each year would be able to bank five weeks at any one time.) The agreement stems from The Guild’s March 2009 concession that led to last year’s vacation burn-off.

In a related tentative deal, the company was granted the right to require employees to use vacation time within “a reasonable period of its accruing.” But that does not give the company the blanket right to institute another vacation burn-down, Linda Brooks, The Bee’s vice president for Human Resources, conceded. A burn-down would still require an agreement from Guild members.

Employees are “strongly encouraged” to take their accrued vacation each year, Brooks said. “The goal is for people to take vacation as they earn it.”

Guild bargaining team members also asked the company to clarify a side letter in regard to salary differentials for covered employees hired on or before March 6, 1987 who are assigned to work 50 percent or more of any shift in a higher wage classification.

The company sought to remove some job classifications from the letter because the jobs have been eliminated or renamed, but the union team contended that the job classifications of assistant photo editor and assistant city editor be added to the relevant sub-categories, since staff could be asked to work in those classifications in the future.

One issue, concerning voluntary resignations, was tabled until further proceedings.

The company wanted to include language that would, at the publisher’s discretion, make the company consider offers of voluntary resignation from employees in the same job classifications and departments where employees received notice of workforce reduction. The company’s proposed language states that the company may accept or reject any offer at its discretion.

Darren Carroll, who is heading the Guild’s negotiating team, respectfully moved to defer negotiations of that portion of the contract because the Guild team will be “coming at this from a slightly different direction.”

Bargaining for the Guild Tuesday was Carroll, Unit Chair Ed Fletcher, Walt Yost and Niesha Lofing. The management team included Ford, Brooks, Anna Buchman, Gary Strong, Norine Mullen and Linda Stovall.

The Sacramento Central Labor Council, AFL-CIO, is hosting a Jobs Rally at noon Thursday (Feb. 11) on the north steps of the State Capitol.

With California’s unemployment rate among the highest in the nation – and with businesses such as the Sacramento Bee continuing to jettison employees – it’s critical someone come up with an agenda to address the crisis.
That’s the purpose of the Jobs Rally, where labor leaders will make their proposals. Please attend if possible – on your lunch break, before your shift, etc.

California’s union members need to show state government how to lead the way.

Continued cost cutting meant the departure of seven talented journalists and one outstanding advertising sales assistant.

As McClatchy seeks to retire a mound of debt during this extremely troubled economic environment, we have to meet the bottom line. Sadly meeting the bottom line also means lowering the journalistic bar, which in my book is a recipe for becoming obsolete.
Leaving The Bee were: Copy editors Rick Nelson and Paul Clegg; page designers Lisa Williams and Shawn Barcoft; assistant sports editors Ahmed Ortiz and Bob Rudy.
Photographer Anne Williams will be departing in a matter of weeks.
While they range in age and experience, they were all top-notch journalists that The Bee will miss.
Journalism is the heart of the operation so it’s always troubling to have to cut off part of it to meet financial goals. But if journalism is the heart of the paper, advertising is our spine.
Cindi Taylor, who left the advertising department via buyout, was vital vertebra – not only to the company, but to the guild as well.
People often say, “Don’t sweat the small stuff.” But people often inaccurately categorize “small stuff.”
Cindi, who served as our vice chair for advertising, sweat the small stuff for all of us. Through her work with the guild she made sure sales people were paid what they were owed, that people got their required breaks and that vacation time was counted correctly. Mistakes by the company that could cost people dearly didn’t go over looked by Cindi. It’s not that she needed every penny to make her mortgage; she just felt strongly that the company should stand by its commitments.
I’m sorry to Cindi go, but I wish her the best in her future endeavors.

Ed Fletcher

McClatchy CEO Gary Pruitt said today that a ‘paywall’ will be tried at one of the company’s newspaper Web sites. Pruitt didn’t say which one. But sources indicate it will be a daily paper south of Sacramento and north of Fresno.

If you haven’t been paying attention to all the speculation about Apple’s new tablet computer/e-book reader, it may be time to start. The company has invited journalists to a new product announcement on Wednesday, and speculation is that the new device will be unveiled soon after.

The reason this matters is that Apple has already been talking to newspaper companies about selling their content for this new device, probably via its iTunes store. If Apple can monetize online newspaper content the way it revolutionized digital music sales, this could be a big deal.

It’s been reported that the New York Times and Wall Street Journal have been approached to provide content, and that Apple is said to be offering favorable terms (i.e. newspapers keep the vast majority of sales revenue).

Is McClatchy involved? The name hasn’t come up so far. But I hope we’re in the game.

This is a worthy read from the Wall Street Journal about the situation.

UPDATE: Here’s another excellent review of the situation, specifically relevant to newspapers, from PC World. It says, among other insights:

Only when people pay for news can we have quality reporting.

By Walt Yost
Bee Guild Now

After a day spent reaching agreement on less contentious contract matters, Guild and Bee representatives set the stage for upcoming negotiations on major job security issues.

Bargaining will resume Feb. 8-9 to discuss such proposals as reducing the cap on severance pay; giving the company the ability to cut the hours of full-time employees; and allowing The Bee to use part-timers and freelancers to do the work of full-time employees.

In other words, now comes the tough part.

But as in any bargaining process, the underbrush needs to be cleared before serious negotiations take place.

“I think we moved the ball along today,” Bob Ford, the company’s attorney, said during Wednesday’s bargaining session at the Radisson Hotel.

Guild representatives also noted progress in the contract process. Darren Carroll, who is heading the Guild’s negotiating team, hopes management will return to the table next month with a revised proposal “reflecting their realistic intentions.”

The company has made it clear it needs more flexibility to respond to the economic climate and deteriorating state of newspapers nationwide.

The Guild acknowledged the need for change, as long as our members aren’t harmed.

On Wednesday, The Guild tenatively agreed to grant the company the right to evaluate new Bee employees who have been hired to do both reporting and photography on their performance in both areas. The existing contract allows for evaluations on one area or the other.

Tentative agreement was also reached on several noncontroversial provisions dealing with national emergencies and military services. The changes were needed to bring the provisions in line with federal law.

In addition, both sides moved closer to agreement on proposals giving the company more flexibility in assigning Guild employees to do work for any McClatchy news publication and in assigning advertising employees to sell non-McClatchy products.

The company still wants greater flexibility to use part-time and freelance workers to perform the work of full-time Guild employees. But the Guild is concerned that will jeopardize job security for its members.

During Wednesday’s bargaining session, Guild unit chair Ed Fletcher asked to know more about how employee evaluations are done –particularly when evaluations are used to determine buyouts and layoffs, as was done just recently at The Bee.

Linda Brooks, the Bee’s vice-president for human resources, said the process is very straightforward for advertising employees. She said she would need to talk with Bee editor Melanie Sill to better understand how evaluations are done in the newsroom.

Bargaining for the Guild Wednesday were Carroll, Fletcher, Cindi Taylor, Ed Fishbein and Walter Yost. The management team included Ford, Brooks, Gary Strong, Anna Buchmann and Linda Stovall.

By Ed Fishbein
Bee Guild Now

Our Guild negotiators had a fruitful discussion with management on Tuesday, Jan. 19, at the Radisson Hotel. While the differences between the two sides narrowed significantly on some issues, it is apparent there is still some distance to go in other areas. Talks continue Wednesday, Jan. 20.

The Bee’s negotiators made it clear that the company still insists on reducing the cap on severance pay from 40 weeks to 26 and will not restore pay cuts or thaw the pension freeze imposed in 2009.  

The company also made clear that it will aggressively pursue the flexibility it believes is needed to respond to the harsh economic climate and to better position the paper for the digital age.

The Guild’s representatives acknowledged the economic challenges The Bee faces. But if the negotiations are to proceed swiftly and successfully, our representatives said, the company will have to be more forthcoming on job security and protections, including to agreeing to limits on freelancers.  

Responding to The Guild’s request for an elaboration of its priorities, McClatchy attorney Bob Ford spelled out the company’s key concerns. He categorized the company’s priorities as “economic” and “non-economic.”

On the non-economic side, Ford said it’s critical for the company to have more flexibility and enhanced efficiencies. In practice, he said, that meant changes in several areas:

– McClatchy wants the right to assign Sacramento Bee Guild member to to perform work for another McClatchy product.  He gave an example of the Kings beat reporter doing a feature on a player for another McClatchy paper, even though the work won’t appear in The Sacramento Bee.

– McClatchy also wants to be free to consolidate functions currently performed at several papers at one site. The example given was to combine the copy desk functions of the three Bee newspapers – in Sacramento, Modesto and Fresno – at a single site, although Ford insisted there were no current plans to do so.

“We recognize that there is a concern about protecting people who are already here,” Ford said. He subsequently sought to assure Guild negotiators that McClatchy was not seeking “an unlimited right to take bargaining unit work wherever we want.”

However, in later discussions both at the bargaining table and away from it, Guild negotiators said that if the company continued to seek changes in this area, they would have to be combined with significantly enhanced severance protections for people who might face layoffs.

Ford also said that any consolidation could lead to increased use of part-timers. He said the company did not foresee a “massive change in the use of part-timers. But there could be a change.”

– McClatchy also wants the right to evaluate new Bee employees who have been hired to do both reporting and photography on their performance in both areas. Currently, the evaluations focus on one area or the other.

– Ford said that McClatchy also wants contract language giving the company the right to solicit volunteers for any staff reductions – “with the caveat that we don’t have to accept” those who volunteer. Currently, the company needs Guild approval for such actions.

Ford then moved on to the company’s economic priorities.

– He addressed the issue of “retroactivity” – the possible denial of pay raises to Guild employees if contract negotiations fail to progress. Saying that “we understand the process has to play itself out,” Ford said that retroactivity won’t be an issue if the negotiations “proceed in a normal amount of time.”

– Ford said “severance is a big issue. We want to go to 26 weeks” from the current 40.

– The company wants the right to impose furloughs without Guild approval. “We have no plans to institute furloughs,” Ford said, “but we want the right to do it.”

– The company wants all employees to take all the vacation they accrue within a year in that same year.  The only carry-overs allowed would be existing vacation banked from previous years. If employees do not schedule their accrued vacation within the year they earn them, managers would schedule vacation for them.

– On issues of particular concern to advertising, Linda Brooks, The Bee’s vice president for human resources, said the company is committed to standardizing advertising computer systems across all McClatchy newspapers and transferring advertising and editorial copy directly from computer to plate. These changes could lead to reductions in staff or hours.

After a lunch break, the talks turned to several subjects, and Newspaper Guild international representative Darren Carroll, who is heading The Guild’s negotiating team, offered a preliminary response to the company’s stance.

Before doing so, however, Guild officer Ed Fletcher told McClatchy’s representatives that The Guild accepted the terms of the current buyout plan. “This is better than the way it’s been done in the past,” he said, although “we would have liked more consultation and notice.”

Linda Brooks contended that while there had been some improvement in The Bee’s revenues, they were still significantly below the previous year, and the newspaper’s outlook remained precarious.

Fletcher then turned to the issue of the newsroom’s use of freelance writers.  He contended that “the terms of the existing contract were being violated by current use of freelancers.” He felt that the increased use of freelancers last year by the Features Department’s “amounted to freelance work taking the place of staff writers.”

The company’s representatives denied this, with Ford contending that the only contractual limit on the use of freelancers is that “it doesn’t result in the layoff of an employee who was employed at the time the contract was signed.”

The issue is certain to be revisited in future negotiations.

Tuesday’s session concluded with Carroll offering a preliminary response to the day’s developments. “Our intent is not to give you a detailed response,” he told McClatchy’s representatives. “But to give you a sense of what our issues were.”

He said that The Guild recognized “where the business is” and “appreciated the information you gave us earlier” on The Bee’s finances. But he added that The Guild helping the company address these very real concerns would require The Bee’s “recognition of some of the issues we’ll bring.”

These issues include The Bee’s push for a severance reduction, which Carroll called “a big problem for us.”  He also said that giving the company more freedom to mandate staff reductions would require “some minimum baselines that these will be buyouts.”

Assuming the company’s good faith, he said, “we don’t see much reason these talks should go beyond the beginning of March.”