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Manchester Guild a Step Ahead in Telecommuting Debate
A New Hampshire newspaper has the solution to the controversy over a Labor Department letter suggesting employers are liable for job-related injuries suffered by home-based workers:
Negotiate.
While some members of Congress and businesspeople flew into an uproar over the “letter of interpretation” from the Occupational Safety and Health Administra-tion, the Manchester Newspaper Guild, TNG-CWA Local 167, can point to an innovative contract that allows telecommuting under rules acceptable to the union and management.
“When we proposed it to the company, they balked a little at first,” said Tom Thibeault, the local’s chief negotiator for the 1998 contract with the Manchester Union Leader newspaper. “But we pointed out the advantages and they saw that it could give them flexibility, too. They decided it was worthwhile.”
The union and company agreed to a three-year pilot program. All parties — the employee, company and Guild — must agree to the terms of the telecommuting arrangement, which is worked out on a case-by-case basis. The contract language is believed to be the first of its kind in CWA.
The contract specifies that the work station must be ergonomically correct, one that is satisfactory to the joint union-management safety committee. Under the contract, the company is responsible through Workers’ Compensation if the employee is injured in the designated area during scheduled work hours. The company isn’t liable for injuries suffered by family members or visitors.
The newspaper had tried telecommuting, successfully, since 1996 with a reporter who lives 90 miles from the paper. Pat Hammond made a pitch to work at home when complications from breast cancer surgery caused one arm to swell, forcing her to spend four hours a day on a machine designed to relieve the condition.
Hammond, 69, works on the Union Leader’s Sunday News and comes to the office on Saturday. Otherwise she works on a laptop at home, talking to her editor about once a day. “It’s a very simple arrange- ment,” she said, adding “Oh, my gosh, yes,” when asked if she’d recommend it.
Hammond’s experience led the Guild to seek the new contract. Although she is the only employee now working at home, Thibeault said another worker did so for a short period when a family member was ill, rather than take vacation or unpaid leave.
Telecommuting isn’t limited to reporters; any job that can be done at home can be considered. The local represents 170 members in editorial, advertising, circulation, janitorial, accounting and data processing. Past negotiations have yielded other worker-friendly language, including a provision for job sharing and a 35-hour work week.
Local President John Whitson said union leaders aren’t surprised that more people haven’t taken advantage of telecommuting — yet. “We were looking more toward the future and where technology is going,” he said.
Even though the company didn’t immediately embrace the proposal, Whitson said, “they didn’t, even from the beginning, get their back up about it or say, ‘This is ridiculous.’ They seemed to see that the way work life and family life overlap, it could allow people to work and live their lives in a less stressful way.”
Whitson said the company wanted to ensure that “they were going to get work out of the employees” at home, and inserted language requiring the employee to be available by phone during working hours.
But he said the union’s research indicated home-based workers may put in more time than office-based employees, “possibly because they feel some guilt about being at home.” In that respect, he said the union was wary, not wanting employees to violate the contract by working uncompensated hours.
The federal controversy started when The Washington Post broke a story Jan. 4 about a letter OSHA sent to a Texas businessman, who raised questions about his responsibility for home-based workers.
OSHA’s response wasn’t new policy, rather an informal advisory, Labor Secretary Alexis Herman said. The letter said employers could be liable for work-related injuries at home but stopped short of saying companies needed to inspect an employee’s home work area.
Herman withdrew the letter the day after the Post story ran, saying she will convene a conference of business and labor leaders and set up an interagency task force to study the issue.
“We acknowledge . . . that employers are responsible for employee safety and health, but we don’t know what that means and how that applies to these new work arrangements in the home today,” she said. “That is why we need a national dialogue on this subject.”
Negotiate.
While some members of Congress and businesspeople flew into an uproar over the “letter of interpretation” from the Occupational Safety and Health Administra-tion, the Manchester Newspaper Guild, TNG-CWA Local 167, can point to an innovative contract that allows telecommuting under rules acceptable to the union and management.
“When we proposed it to the company, they balked a little at first,” said Tom Thibeault, the local’s chief negotiator for the 1998 contract with the Manchester Union Leader newspaper. “But we pointed out the advantages and they saw that it could give them flexibility, too. They decided it was worthwhile.”
The union and company agreed to a three-year pilot program. All parties — the employee, company and Guild — must agree to the terms of the telecommuting arrangement, which is worked out on a case-by-case basis. The contract language is believed to be the first of its kind in CWA.
The contract specifies that the work station must be ergonomically correct, one that is satisfactory to the joint union-management safety committee. Under the contract, the company is responsible through Workers’ Compensation if the employee is injured in the designated area during scheduled work hours. The company isn’t liable for injuries suffered by family members or visitors.
The newspaper had tried telecommuting, successfully, since 1996 with a reporter who lives 90 miles from the paper. Pat Hammond made a pitch to work at home when complications from breast cancer surgery caused one arm to swell, forcing her to spend four hours a day on a machine designed to relieve the condition.
Hammond, 69, works on the Union Leader’s Sunday News and comes to the office on Saturday. Otherwise she works on a laptop at home, talking to her editor about once a day. “It’s a very simple arrange- ment,” she said, adding “Oh, my gosh, yes,” when asked if she’d recommend it.
Hammond’s experience led the Guild to seek the new contract. Although she is the only employee now working at home, Thibeault said another worker did so for a short period when a family member was ill, rather than take vacation or unpaid leave.
Telecommuting isn’t limited to reporters; any job that can be done at home can be considered. The local represents 170 members in editorial, advertising, circulation, janitorial, accounting and data processing. Past negotiations have yielded other worker-friendly language, including a provision for job sharing and a 35-hour work week.
Local President John Whitson said union leaders aren’t surprised that more people haven’t taken advantage of telecommuting — yet. “We were looking more toward the future and where technology is going,” he said.
Even though the company didn’t immediately embrace the proposal, Whitson said, “they didn’t, even from the beginning, get their back up about it or say, ‘This is ridiculous.’ They seemed to see that the way work life and family life overlap, it could allow people to work and live their lives in a less stressful way.”
Whitson said the company wanted to ensure that “they were going to get work out of the employees” at home, and inserted language requiring the employee to be available by phone during working hours.
But he said the union’s research indicated home-based workers may put in more time than office-based employees, “possibly because they feel some guilt about being at home.” In that respect, he said the union was wary, not wanting employees to violate the contract by working uncompensated hours.
The federal controversy started when The Washington Post broke a story Jan. 4 about a letter OSHA sent to a Texas businessman, who raised questions about his responsibility for home-based workers.
OSHA’s response wasn’t new policy, rather an informal advisory, Labor Secretary Alexis Herman said. The letter said employers could be liable for work-related injuries at home but stopped short of saying companies needed to inspect an employee’s home work area.
Herman withdrew the letter the day after the Post story ran, saying she will convene a conference of business and labor leaders and set up an interagency task force to study the issue.
“We acknowledge . . . that employers are responsible for employee safety and health, but we don’t know what that means and how that applies to these new work arrangements in the home today,” she said. “That is why we need a national dialogue on this subject.”