P-I offers shell game, refuses to double down
P-I management came to the negotiating table Friday saying that they were willing to hear the Guild's employee-retention ideas, but in the end didn't offer much willingness to change the company's initial proposal.
"They wouldn't budge on the night differential, the split days off. How hard is it to increase the night differential from a dollar?" said Liz Brown, administrative officer for the Pacific Northwest Newspaper Guild. "They're stepping over dollars to pick up dimes at this point."
Company negotiators Matt Lynch, John Currie and Janet Grimley have continually declined to discuss anything but payscale increases over the next two years and changes to the contract's current severance package.
Lynch said that management would rather not discuss potential "effects" issues, that is benefits upon layoffs or closure, until that time has come and the company and its employees are certain that they will no longer have jobs.
Though Publisher Roger Oglesby and his managers have said that they believe they will win the arbitration battle with The Seattle Times, Lynch and Currie did not respond favorably to a request by Guild negotiator Art Thiel when he said that extra money is needed to give "vivid, dramatic indications of Hearst's confidence in its position."
The company's proposal last week was to enhance severance for people with seniority of six years or less, to offer a partial payout of severance upon the potential announcement of the P-I's closure and give minimum pay increases of $25 a week next year.
Guild negotiators suggested, however, that the Publisher "double down" on a bet that the P-I will continue to publish after the arbitration decision by offering employees a $10,000 one-time bonus should the Publisher be wrong.
Both Lynch and Currie seemed offended that staffers would be skeptical of the Publisher's statement that Hearst would win the arbitration battle. But Thiel reminded them that negotiators represent journalists, who are paid specifically for their skepticism and willingness to question authority.
"People are skeptical of Hearst's historical abandonment of, for example,
With that in mind, the Guild also proposed doubling the amount of severance for all employees.
"If the P-I is going to continue publishing, then it doesn't matter because you won't have to pay," Guild negotiator Candace Heckman told management. "We're going to win, right? So, all of this will be a moot point, anyway."
When Guild negotiators suggested that the company offer a conditional signing bonus as an incentive to keep employees in the house for the duration of the arbitration, management responded by saying that this year's pay-for-performance increases were meant to accomplish that.
The company's contract proposal also included a minimum pay raise of $20 for this year with the understanding that most employees already received an average 4-percent pay-for-performance increase. Guild negotiators pointed out most people do not know that the company meant for these raises to be its primary enticement to stay.
"The publisher is still going to handle individual retention issues, as well, and that ought not to be undervalued," Lynch said.
The company made a counterproposal that did not include the additional signing bonus, retention bonus, or increased severance for all employees. The company did not offer any more money than in its current proposal, but shifted funds.
The shift included lowering this year's average 4-percent pay increase to an average 2-percent increase. The difference would be divided up and paid to employees through an $800 one-time bonus.
Guild negotiators noted that this was simply giving staff the money the company already gave them. Additionally, since everyone would get $800, some people would actually get less money than they would have earned over the course of the year.
"Advancing money that would already have accrued is not new money," Thiel responded.
P-I management has said repeatedly that its focus in contract talks was employee retention. Guild negotiators, however, left Friday's meeting with doubts about the sincerity of those statements.
When Guild negotiators indicated that management needed to offer more money to buy their staff's trust, the Publisher's representative, Matt Lynch, said that he did not understand how retention or signing bonuses would be adequate incentives for retaining employees.
Lynch seemed upset that the company's pay-for-performance raises in May and its proposed $25-a-week raise next year would not be good enough to keep the P-I's most talented journalists on staff.
"The sense I'm getting is that too much was spent on PFP this year," Lynch said, seemingly frustrated. "The paper isn't willing to spend a million dollars on employees right now."
posted by Yoko at Friday, June 09, 2006
8 Comments:
What the proposal is telling me is the company wants to give an incentive for people to leave who are most likely to find jobs elsewhere if the arbitrator closes the paper.
That means the staff left publishing to the last day will probably be older, close-to -retirment people and young, green reporters wanting clips.
Am I wrong?
The raises were better than expected this year, I'll give the company that. However, when it comes to my livelihood and taking care of my family, I don't think the current severance package will be adequate. It might be easier to find a job now than in a year when everyone will be looking. It's probably best for us to hedge our bets.
I find Mr. Lynch's comments personally insulting. We're not asking for a million dollars. Just something to hang on to during a very frightening period. We don't all have the confidence that management does that they will prevail in this fight.
I agree with the first post: Is their goal to thin the staff? Or what? They don't seem to understand how fragile this staff is.
Management's unwillingness to pony up seems to indicate that they don't see us as a long-term investment.
It looks to me like they expect us all to be gone within the next few years ... one way or another.
I think the operative language in the latest "offer" from Hearst management is the sentence that basically says that, despite the pittance that we're offering you, remember that the publisher is still more than willing on a case by case basis to negotiate with individuals should he need to (that's a paraphrase, of course).
My take on this, despite its obvious arrogance, is: "We ain't going to give you shit -- unless you go out and get a job offer somewhere else... Then, maybe we'll think about offering you more."
That's exactly opposite of how Rog described the P-I's dedication to its employees...
What a bunch of horseshit.
OK, so management's chief negotiator, Matt Lynch, told our bargaining unit at the outset of negotiations that "Money can be a very powerful incentive."
Now, from what I heard of what went down during the last bargaining session, it seems that Lynch has changed his tune. Apparently, he told our unit that he doesn't think bonuses or extra money are an incentive in keeping people from fleeing.
It's like dealing with a used car salesman. I mean, what gives?
You either pony up and show us you're serious about your employees, or you tell us straight out we're not important -- so we can start looking elsewhere. We don't need the games.
At the very least, Hearst is being disingenuous in these negotiations. Given that about 10 staffers have already left since the arbitration announcement, why can't they understand that people here are scared and need true financial incentives (i.e. fair severance packages and retention bonuses) to stick around during such uncertain times?
What it sounds like to me is Hearst thinks that money can be a powerful incentive, except that the company is cheap and thinks its people can be bought off with pennies.
What a joke!
This is an outrage! Somebody ought to call the newspaper. Oh wait...
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