GUILD LEADER
| Vol XIl, Issue 24 | TNG/CWA Local 31041 | May 1, 2001 |
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GUILD WINS REDUCTION IN WORKER'S SUSPENSION The
Guild has won a reduction in discipline - from a three-day to
a one-day suspension - that The Journal ordered against a Pre-publishing
specialist who left work after she had been ordered to do work
normally done by workers in a lower classification. The
company has been directed to restore two-days' worth of pay
to Karen Senerchia, and to change her personnel record to remove
its original notice of a three-day penalty, replacing it with
information about the lesser penalty. While
the newspaper could discipline Senerchia for leaving work, said
Arbitrator Richard G. Boulanger, it went overboard in the harshness
of the sanction. He
said that the three-day suspension was imposed in part because
she protested loudly about her reassignment and used strong
language. But Boulanger said there was testimony that this occurs
"with some regularity" at The Journal without people
being disciplined. During
the arbitration hearing, Richard McCaskill, Pre-publishing supervisor,
"described the quality of her work as excellent. The evidence
revealed that the grievant had received positive evaluations
and regular promotions throughout her five-year career at the
Journal,'' Boulanger wrote in an award issued April 24. This
restores money and other benefits to somebody treated too harshly
by the company, and gets the record changed, should the company
try something again. Senerchia
is a member of the Guild's executive board, and had served before
that on the Guild's unit council. According
to the arbitrator, Senerchia had been working a three-day week
when she was asked to put in an extra shift Jan. 24, 2000, something
she often does. She
was doing ad-proofing work normally done by specialists when
McCaskill asked her to switch to typing ads. She protested,
saying that the company had used temporary workers (irregular
extras) for specialists' work in the past, but asked specialists
to perform work, such as typing, normally performed by Pre-publishing
operators. The
Guild and the company have had a long-running dispute because
of the company's attempt to downgrade the work in the department
from higher to lower-paid classifications. The dispute is a
key one in the current protracted contract negotiations. Also,
Senerchia said she had an agreement with Richard O'Brien, Pre-publishing
Department manager, allowing her to leave after only four hours
when assigned to extra shifts, because her father was ill. The
Guild argued that when she protested the changed assignment
after working four hours, that was "evidence of her level
of physical and emotional fatigue" because of her father's
illness. The
arbitrator noted that the company complained Senerchia had protested
the assignment loudly and that profanity was used. "The
level of profanity used by the grievant is in dispute,"
the arbitrator wrote. "Journal witnesses testified that
the grievant used the 'f' word, but Guild witnesses, including
the grievant, stated that at most the grievant utilized the
term `bullshit.' " But
the arbitrator noted that Wayne Pelland, director of operations,
"admitted that other employees have used profanities while
working on Journal premises, and they were not disciplined.'' Boulanger
said the three-day suspension was issued in part because of
the language and loudness of the protest, but that such talk
"takes place with some regularity without discipline…therefore,
a deduction from the three days of suspension is appropriate." "The Journal shall forthwith make the grievant whole for two days' pay, and it shall forthwith remove any references in the grievant's personnel file to the three-day suspension and replaced it with notice of a one-day suspension," he said. |
Two Guild Members
to Attend Belo Stockholders
May 9 Confab in Dallas
The
Guild will send two stockholder-representatives to the annual stockholders'
meeting of the Belo Corp., scheduled May 9 in Dallas.
The
purpose is to alert fellow stockholders to troubles facing one of
their key subsidiaries - The Providence Journal - as exemplified by
the wasteful and expensive labor problems provoked by the company's
managers.
The
union's representatives will seek answers as to why the corporation
has allowed the situation in Rhode Island to go on for a year-and-a-half,
costing Belo thousands of dollars in legal fees, as well as a run-off
of human capital, with the departure of key journalists, ad salespersons
and other employees.
Attending
for the Guild will be Kerry Kohring, a copy editor who owns shares
of Belo, and who is a member of the union's executive board and negotiating
committee. Kohring helps edit The Journal's daily business pages.
Also
going to the session will be Brian Jones, another executive board
member and a former financial writer for the newspaper, now assigned
to the general assignment staff. Jones owns a small amount of Belo
stock.
In
addition to representing their own shares, Kohring and Jones will
be voting the 170 shares held by the Providence local, shares owned
by other Guild members, and 80 shares owned by The Newspaper Guild/
Communications Workers of America.
The
executive board voted to send representatives to the meeting because
its members felt it important that shareholders understand some of
the destructive practices going on in Providence.
Further,
the Guild members hope to learn more about the operations of the Belo
parent corporation, since it exerts such strong control over The Journal,
where the circulation slide has continued since the Dallas corporation
bought the newspaper and its TV stations four years ago.
Guild-represented
employees, like the corporation's thousands of other workers, are
interested in management's thinking about the health of Belo -- which
in the last quarter saw profits plummet more than 95 percent -- as
well as its new business initiatives, such as the Cue:Cat technology
that has earned disappointing reviews nationally.
Mainly,
the Guild stockholders will focus on what they know intimately, the
debacle of the labor situation here in Providence, where prolonged
negotiations have added to an unpleasant work atmosphere, which has
contributed to the departure of 55 workers in the past year-and-a-half.
Belo
and The Journal Company have spent thousands of dollars in legal fees
in what the Guild considers frivolous lawsuits to thwart the union's
right to arbitration.
Most serious is the conduct that has earned The Journal 30 counts of unfair labor practice violation, which will be aired at a hearing by the National Labor Relations Board in June.
This
will cost more lawyers' fees for Belo and The Journal to defend themselves,
while the NLRB, not the Guild, will shoulder the cost of prosecution.
The
only scheduled business on the stockholders' agenda, as described
in the proxy statement, is the election of three directors, one of
whom is Stephen Hamblett, 66, the retired Journal publisher who was
responsible for Belo's purchase of The Journal in 1997.
Although
Belo rules require retirement of directors at age 65, the proxy statement
says that The Journal deal specified that Hamblett could remain on
the board until he is 70.
The Guild executive board authorized funds to send Kohring and Jones to Dallas. The expenses include a total of $644 for airfare, $125 for a hotel room, plus two-days of lost work time for both workers, (travel necessitates two days), and miscellaneous costs.
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TNG/CWA Local 31041
270 Westmister St., Providence, Rhode Island 02903
401-421-9466 | Fax: 401-421-9495
png@riguild.org