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10-Year Struggle Wins TNG-CWA Contract
Members of TNG-CWA Local 31041 voted decisively to ratify first contracts at the Worcester Telegram and Gazette in Massachusetts after years of mobilization and tough bargaining.
The three agreements cover 200 workers in the news, inside circulation and outside circulation departments. Newsroom employees organized in 1993; workers in the circulation departments joined in March and May of 2000.
Among gains, the contracts provide for a formal grievance procedure with final and binding arbitration, a key goal of the units, said TNG-CWA administrator Tim Schick.
Schick said members were determined "to behave like a union, even though we hadn't yet bargained a contract. That meant aggressively enforcing the company's employee handbook, rules that management instituted during the initial organizing campaign to convince workers they didn't need a union."
"We were able to establish our credibility early on in working with the newsroom employees, and that enabled us to organize the two other units," he said.
The four-year agreements establish wage scales for the first time at the newspaper, with an increase of 2.5 percent in the first year for full-time workers. Wage increases for each of the subsequent three years will be negotiated yearly. Part-time workers now will be paid at least 80 percent of the hourly rate paid to full time workers, up from 65 percent. The contracts also provide for job security and seniority protections for workers, along with severance pay and recall rights for 18 months in the event of a layoff.
Throughout the 1990s, newspaper management demanded that wage scales be advisory only, sought extensive "management rights," and insisted that the publisher be the final arbiter of any disputes between workers and management. Negotiations continued after the New York Times Co. bought the newspaper in 2000.
The three agreements cover 200 workers in the news, inside circulation and outside circulation departments. Newsroom employees organized in 1993; workers in the circulation departments joined in March and May of 2000.
Among gains, the contracts provide for a formal grievance procedure with final and binding arbitration, a key goal of the units, said TNG-CWA administrator Tim Schick.
Schick said members were determined "to behave like a union, even though we hadn't yet bargained a contract. That meant aggressively enforcing the company's employee handbook, rules that management instituted during the initial organizing campaign to convince workers they didn't need a union."
"We were able to establish our credibility early on in working with the newsroom employees, and that enabled us to organize the two other units," he said.
The four-year agreements establish wage scales for the first time at the newspaper, with an increase of 2.5 percent in the first year for full-time workers. Wage increases for each of the subsequent three years will be negotiated yearly. Part-time workers now will be paid at least 80 percent of the hourly rate paid to full time workers, up from 65 percent. The contracts also provide for job security and seniority protections for workers, along with severance pay and recall rights for 18 months in the event of a layoff.
Throughout the 1990s, newspaper management demanded that wage scales be advisory only, sought extensive "management rights," and insisted that the publisher be the final arbiter of any disputes between workers and management. Negotiations continued after the New York Times Co. bought the newspaper in 2000.