Disappointed Is An Understatement

Last month, management finally presented us with economic responses that were discouraging, incomplete, rife with inaccuracies, and outright insulting. While we made progress on some noneconomic issues, the lack of care taken to meaningfully engage with our proposals on benefits, leaves, wages, and other topics was disheartening to see after more than a year and a half of negotiations.

Here’s the gist:

BENEFITS: Instead of responding to our individual proposals on benefits, management gave us a single counter proposing that they would be able to change our benefits and leave policies at any time, including time off, family and medical leave, disability leave, parental leave, health insurance, and 401(k) plans, without having to negotiate with the union.

Management told us — as they have in the past — that because they handle benefits on a company-wide level, they won’t bargain over any policies or changes specific to union members. We are, honestly, baffled by the company digging in on such an unproductive position, especially given that our proposals on benefits were deliberately practical and restrained — largely aiming to lock in the status quo, with a few key improvements. Simply refusing to have a conversation about these policies is not an acceptable way to bargain.

WAGES: One major issue we want to address in our contract is the pay disparity between the production-oriented teams that work on all of our content (art, copy, operations, curation) and the reporters and editors in our newsroom. Our wages proposal took a big step toward addressing this gap.

But in their response, management — while they took some superficial steps to reduce the number of different reporter titles in the newsroom — preserved these huge pay gaps between teams. When we asked why, the company’s VP of HR told us they believe those roles should be paid less because they focus on “routine tasks” and don’t require as much creativity or independent decision-making. As anyone in our newsroom could tell you, this is an insulting and inaccurate way to describe the work of those teams. 

Across the board, the salary minimums management proposed for each title not only don’t improve pay in the newsroom, but are actually much lower than what our members are paid now under the company’s existing “leveling” system (ranging from 8% to 60% less than what people currently make). So that means that under management’s proposal, not a single person in the newsroom would receive a raise as a result of implementing new minimums. (For comparison, the minimums the union proposed would have increased wages for about 65% of unit members.) Instead, management proposed that unit members would only get a 1% guaranteed annual wage increase (along with any merit raise that each person might or might not receive, at the company’s discretion) which is much lower than the established past practice  of around a 3% raise each year.

Needless to say, we didn’t form a union to secure a 1% increase in total pay. Management beginning our negotiations over wages with such a low-ball proposal, which stakes out a position far below the established status quo, is not bargaining in good faith.

HOURS AND OVERTIME: Management countered our proposed 35-hour week (7-hour days) — which is union standard — and proposed a 40-hour week (8-hour days) instead.

They also rejected all our other proposals, including provisions about employees being able to decline work outside standard hours, guaranteed comp time/overtime, expansion of the teams and titles eligible for overtime (they propose that only hourly employees would be eligible, and eligible titles are still TBD), measuring comp time in 1-hour increments (as opposed to half or whole days), and employees being able to request accrued comp time be paid out yearly. On that final point, many of us are unable to take comp time as time off given the unrelenting pace and workload of our jobs in the newsroom, and it’s disappointing to see that not acknowledged.

REDUCTIONS IN FORCE: We put together a very thoughtful and reasonable proposal about how layoffs would be handled in the future, and management cut about 90% of it. Management wants full discretion to decide who to lay off, based on “special skills, performance, qualifications, and seniority.” They did agree, at least, that where other factors are similar, seniority shall govern. 

They also cut and did not even engage with our proposed idea of a recall list, so that if the company begins hiring again soon after layoffs, the people laid off who are qualified for those jobs would be offered a chance to return. After we pointed out that our amazing colleagues in the Canada union have already come to an agreement on recall language, and that this is a huge concern given the company’s history of laying people off only to turn around and rehire for very similar jobs just a few months later, management did then say that they were potentially open to the concept and would reconsider it in their next counter.

SEVERANCE: We originally proposed a minimum of 16 weeks of severance with an additional two weeks of pay for each year of service, up to a maximum of 52 weeks. Management countered with a minimum of four weeks and a maximum of eight. This is in line with what they offered during our work-sharing negotiations last summer, when they were claiming serious financial stress, and much less than what they offered during the big round of layoffs BuzzFeed went through in 2019. 

As we reminded management, last summer members of their own bargaining committee told us “We would like to offer you a better severance,” and “I don’t think anyone feels like this is as rich as we want it to be.” Why management would then propose to contractually lock in severance they themselves have admitted is nowhere near good enough, only they can explain!

UNPAID LEAVES: This is the only proposal on a specific benefit or leave policy that the company responded to, but they still ignored and rejected the bulk of what we proposed. We want up to 1 year for unpaid leave, including academic, book/creative, and personal. Their response: a maximum of 3 months for all types of leave, with an option to request an extension to 6 months — which is actually more restrictive than our newsroom’s current published policy, which offers “6 months of unpaid leave in most cases.” In response, the company told us that that document — which they routinely cite at the bargaining table to defend their proposals — is out of date.

The company also wants their current policy that an employee must use all their PTO before going on any unpaid leave (including book leave) to remain the same, which is a concern for many people in the newsroom. There’s a big difference between taking a vacation and taking an unpaid leave to deal with personal issues or work on a book project, and conflating the two worsens the burnout that many of our members are already experiencing.

HEALTH & SAFETY - Finally, some standards the company and the union could agree on! The company agreed that employees don’t have to work in any specific location if traveling to/from or being there would put their health or safety at risk. Given the quickly shifting state of the pandemic, it’s more important than ever that each person can make the decisions they need to to ensure their own safety, and we’re glad to have the vast majority of this proposal finally settled. 

However, the company’s response to our proposal on how they can support employees’ mental health was disheartening. We proposed a $400 a month reimbursement for out of network mental health care, funded through a limited-purpose HRA, which the company immediately rejected. They did not propose any alternative plans. We were told that mental health benefits had to be considered in an “economic package,” and that “maybe there will be trade offs” in other ways we’re compensated. 

We will continue to push the company to do better in ensuring that employees have affordable access to mental health services, because this is not just an issue of money. Given the incredible mental stress of journalism work at such a chaotic moment in the world, it’s vital to ensuring a healthy and safe workplace.