In the history of negotiations between the Newspaper Guild and The Sacramento Bee, few have been as difficult as Friday. As the newspaper industry reels from lost advertising, declining readership and a stalled economy, the company brought out its proposal for wage cuts and layoffs.

In the end, following hours of talks and counterpoints, the Guild’s bargaining team agreed to take the company’s package to a vote of members on Friday, March 6.

The move was made without a recommendation on whether members should vote yes or no on the package.

Let’s get into the details of what members in advertising and editorial must consider in the coming days:

Friday’s tentative agreement includes 34 layoffs from within the bargaining unit — eight positions in advertising and 26 in the newsroom.

The tentative agreement also included salary reductions that break down this way:

  • For employees earning less than $25,000, no cut in pay.
  • Those earning between $25,000 and $50,000 can expect a cut of 3 percent.
  • Employees earning $50,000 or more will see their salaries rolled back 6 percent.

Agreement was reached on commission payouts under the new commission structure and a 2% salary increase to contract minimums. However, the company made it clear that payments under this new system would be retroactive to January 1, 2009, only if the tentative agreement is ratified on March 6.

The wage cuts would go into effect on April 1. They apply building wide, including the publisher and management and others beyond the bargaining unit.

The Guild was offered a painful and unpleasant choice.

If its membership rejects those wage cuts for its bargaining unit, the number of layoffs within the unit would increase to 53, which translates to 16 positions in advertising and 37 in the newsroom.

The company was not interested in voluntary buyouts like we had last summer at The Bee.

Human Resources Director Linda Brooks said those who are laid off will be notified in person or by telephone calls at home. If an employee is on vacation, they will rely on the emergency number on file with HR. So if your emergency number is wrong, or if you want to check who you have down as that contact, you may want to contact HR. Brooks did not specify when this process would begin, but it will be soon.

Unpaid furloughs are also a possibility. The tentative agreement includes language giving the company the right to institute a weeklong furlough during the second half of 2009, if necessary. Hourly employees will be able to take the furlough in day increments; exempt employees must take the time off as a single block.  The company agreed to a Guild proposal giving employees 30 days notice if furloughs were to begin.

Furloughs will not occur in the first half of the year. Instead, the company hopes to reap savings by decreasing the cap on how much vacation employees can bank. The company is pressing employees to take all vacation in excess of one week beyond their annual entitlement. For instance, employees who earn four weeks a year of vacation would have to take all accrued vacation in excess of five weeks before June.

As for another contentious subject — the company pension plan — the company agreed to a so-called “side letter” that reiterates the Guild’s contention that our current contract does not allow the company to unilaterally freeze our pensions.  The company also reserves its position that it is allowed to take the action. The company previously rejected this side letter as “unacceptable.” The issue will be revisited when talks open in December on a full contract.

Bottom line, however, the company will freeze employee pension plans at the end of March. It does not mean your accumulated pension disappears. It is simply frozen where it is now.  Employees not yet vested in the pension plan (less than 5 years service), will continue to accumulate service credit toward a pension — although the company will not be contributing any money while pensions are frozen. So if you’re not yet at five years of service, all is not lost.

For those who ultimately lose their jobs during this trying time, the company will provide COBRA coverage for nine months, taking advantage of the federal stimulus package.  Laid off employees will be responsible for 35 percent of their medical premiums — as opposed to 100 percent, as previously required.  The nine months is triple the current three months of coverage available under the current contract.

It was a very difficult day for the bargaining committee, which made numerous proposals to soften the impact – nearly all of them rejected by Brooks of Human Resources and Bee labor attorney Bob Ford. Those included proposals asking for no more layoffs through the duration of this labor contract (from now until December). They also rejected our request that if more layoffs were to occur, severance pay would be calculated at employees’ pre-April 1 salary.

The committee tried its hardest to win some concessions in exchange for accepting a difficult package of wage cuts and layoffs. But over and over, the company said it was an all-or-nothing deal necessary to achieve the company’s financial goals in the eye of a severe economic downturn.

Opinions varied within the bargaining committee regarding a choice that was unpleasant in every sense of the word. We have all heard of the layoffs elsewhere, and even steeper wage cuts being asked of other newspapers, including 11.7 percent at the Denver Post and 15 percent at the Seattle Times.  Every day brings new reports of newspaper bankruptcies and closings, as was the case at The Rocky Mountain News on Friday.

There’s no way to sugar coat it. This was crisis bargaining, nothing more. Now members must consider the options and vote. We have been told that a no vote will trigger high number of layoffs among us.

We will be having meetings next week to talk it through and chart a direction.

Your Guild bargaining committee included President Ed Fletcher and Walt Yost and Jim Wasserman of editorial and Cindi Taylor of advertising. Present and facilitating the details from the Northern California Media Workers Guild were Wendy Mejia and Linda Frediani.