TNG-CWA Local Charges Thomson Reuters over Illegal Pay Cuts

TNG-CWAers rally for a fair contract at Thomson Reuters.

TNG-CWA Local 31003 filed charges with the National Labor Relations Board over Thomson Reuters Corp.'s illegal and unilateral pay cuts that drastically cut the compensation of journalists, technicians and other employees by 10 percent.

For more on the fight for fairness at Reuters, go to www.reutersexposed.com.

Thomson Reuters falsely claimed that bargaining was at impasse, said Local President Bill O'Meara. "This dispute is really about saving quality journalism in this country. If a healthy company like Thomson Reuters, whose CEO made almost as much in 2008 as our 420 members' annual salaries, cuts pay, it will cause less healthy news organizations to cut even more. Soon, many of the journalists our democracy depends on won't be able to afford to stay in the business."

TNG-CWA Local 31001 represents news, photo, television, technical and other workers at the company. Negotiations have been underway for more than a year, but Thomson Reuters continues to refuse to provide legal and other information that the local requested.

The local also charged Thomson Reuters with illegally implementing a Twitter policy, not negotiated with the Guild, that bars employees from "tweeting" anything "that would damage the reputation of Reuters News or Thomson Reuters."

In more actions, TNG-CWA members will be out in force again on Friday. Mobile billboard trucks have been all over Manhattan with the message, "Reuters is bad news for its employees. Is it bad for your bottom line?" aimed at the company's Wall Street and financial customers, and an online campaign has been sending lots of new viewers to www.reutersexposed.com.