Journal Communication's final offer
We have given the company numerous concessions since bargaining began in December 2007:
- Our staff has suffered a 35% reduction in size due to those employees who were laid off, quit, or took early retirement.
- We've gone without a pay increase since March 2007.
- We proposed to take an additional 6% wage reduction for current employees, and even further wage reductions through attrition, upon ratification of a new contract.
- We conceded to the Employer's desire to replace a pay escalator with a performance evaluation based system for future pay raises.
- We proposed alternate scheduling arrangements to give the Employer more flexibility in staff scheduling to cover their expanding local programming 24/7.
- We conceded to fewer available vacation opportunities to help the Employer reduce their need to hire "vacation relief" employees.
- We conceded to limit our recall rights and severance pay for future involuntary lay offs, and proposed alternative voluntary severance arrangements.
These concessions were not enough for a greedy company that is pressuring us to take unreasonable sacrifices, a tactic that falls just short of union busting. On August 10, 2009, Journal Broadcast Group gave us their Final Offer:
- They want further staff reductions, exceeding 50%, by merging job assignments and reassigning our exclusive jurisdiction to lesser paid, non-union employees.
- They want to impose more drastic wage reductions where some Engineers will suffer as much as a 45% reduction in wages!
- They want to cap the wages of most Engineers making them ineligible for performance based wage increases.
- They want ultimate flexibility in scheduling that does not guarantee 40-hour work weeks for all full-time employees, regular shifts or consecutive days off each week.
- They want further limitations on our opportunities to use earned vacation.
On August 23, our unit voted overwhelmingly to reject this contract proposal. The Employer refused to negotiate with us any further, and on September 21, 2009, the Employer once again unlawfully declared impasse when no such impasse existed and began implementing their final offer.
Please contact Journal Broadcast Group management and ask them to bargain in good faith with the IBEW union Engineers.
Please contact Journal Broadcast Group management and ask them to bargain in good faith with the IBEW union Engineers.
