Deep Background

The Guild today filed another grievance against the company, this time on behalf of all our new members who recently transferred from Middletown, Hamilton and Springfield to work on the new universal copy desk.

To our great dismay, the company has decided to treat these new Guild members unfairly, taking action that is a blatant violation of our contract. The company is actually ordering some copy editors to alter timecards that accurately reflect their work hours so the revised cards do not reflect what they have earned.

The action is possibly even illegal and is an insulting effort to rob these very hardworking folks of a mere $3 a day that they have legitimately earned.

Here’s what happened. Back during Memorial Day week many of our new copy editors learned for the first time that they are eligible for night differential — $3 a day in extra pay for those who work shifts that begin after 12 p.m. This benefit is in our contract and has been honored by the company for more than 20 years.

As more copy editors began putting the small “N” on their timecards to indicate a night shift, an inconsistency began to arise. Some were being paid night differential and some were not. One copy editor, confused about whether he was indicating the “N” correctly on his time card, visited payroll to ask why he was not receiving the $3 a day.

Later, that copy editor was called into a meeting with a manager. He was told he was not permitted to ask payroll questions about his pay check unless he had first checked with a manager.

This is an outrageous claim. Everyone has the right to ask payroll questions to clarify concerns about their own paychecks. This is a long standing past practice.

The next day, the same copy editor was called into a meeting with Lisa Jourgensen, who told him he was not eligible for night differential because he transferred from another Cox property. Jourgensen claimed that a side agreement signed in March between the company and the Guild somehow exempted transferring copy editors from receiving night differential.

This is blatantly false. The side agreement addressed only a few limited issues, most related to how pay would be raised for new copy editors so they could be placed properly into our higher pay scales. The side agreement never addresses night differential. But it does explicitly say that transferring copy editors will be covered by the Guild contract upon their arrival here in April, 2007.

Jourgensen’s argument is nonsensical. She argues that because the side agreement does not address night differential, the company does not have to pay it. That is absurd. Contract law works just the opposite — issues that are not addressed in a side agreement then revert to what is stated in the actual contract.

Here’s what really bugs us about this action by the company. All of our copy editors — new arrivals and long time Guild members alike — have worked extremely hard to make the universal desk work. They have repeatedly gone above and beyond the call of duty out of a sense of professional duty and pride in their work.

And copy desk managers have depended on their goodwill. Just this week, managers were begging copy editors to forfeit even more of their personal time to take extra shifts because scheduling problems continually leave the desk undermanned.

But at the same time the company relies on the beyond-the-call-of-duty hard work of our copy editors it wants to play this petty game to try to deny these dedicated folks a mere $3 that they have rightfully earned.

Managers ought to be handing out rewards, not punishments, in this circumstance.

And why does management want to drive a divide through the copy editing staff at a time when it claims to want to bring the desk together? Why would it label one copy editor a second class citizen and deny that person a benefit he or she earned while the person sitting in the next seat over, doing the same exact work, covered by the same labor contract, gets first class treatment?

This will not stand. We’ve asked for a meeting within five days to discuss the grievance. Stay tuned.