Shop Paper #14 and #15: With action comes progress
Hey Shop F,
We had two bargaining sessions in March with very different tones. Does “In like a lion, out like a lamb” work for bargaining too?
We’ll review our most recent session first, so it’s easier to see how we’ve progressed.
Our most recent season was on March 23rd. We opened with questions about the planned office consolidation. Many of our members don’t have a Forbes phone/number and have to use their personal calls for their work. And only a handful of folks are allowed to expense part of their bills. We addressed the expenses related to a remote office such as phones and office equipment in our remote work proposal. (Just one of 16 proposals that Forbes hasn’t responded to yet out of the 29 presented in March and June of last year.) Ali did confirm that members with a Forbes number will be able to keep it. But she wouldn’t answer any questions about whether Forbes will reimburse for personal phones. There were other questions about shipping the contents of desk to folks in the tri-state area, whether there will be storage available if needed, retaining fact checking documents for legal reasons and how Forbes plans to keep the business and editorial divisions separate.
Ali seemed exasperated by these questions and tried to tell us that we have nothing to worry about because “Forbes is so generous.” A statement most of our members wouldn’t agree with, especially those who haven’t seen a raise since before the union started or have tried to negotiate increases that actually reflect their work.
Next up were our counters on union security, coverage & jurisdiction and Forbes’ management rights proposal and a Forbes counter on non-discrimination. We rejected nearly all of their management rights language. We’re getting closer on union security and coverage & jurisdiction. Interestingly, Forbes finally returned their non-discrimination proposal – we’re currently looking over language related to visas in the non-discrimination proposal and are close to a TA there.
The tone of this session was markedly different than the one earlier in March and all the others we’ve had over the past year. Anyone who’s been to a bargaining session over the past year is familiar with how Forbes’ lawyer conducts himself (behavior that Joyce and Ali have not once tried to reign in). But in the 3/27 session he was professional and respectful for the entire session. The difference? This bargaining session came after our successful educational picket of the Pay Equity event on March 15th. For the first time in a long time, we came away from a session feeling like progress had been made.
It’s clear that in order to win this thing, we’ll have to do more than speak eloquently at the table. Collective action is, simply and logistically, our greatest weapon.
Compare this session with the one we had earlier in the month.
On Tuesday, March 7, we met with Forbes management, where it became pretty clear to us that they weren’t even pretending to bargain in good faith. Management “rejected” our severance proposal without offering a counter and alleged our reduction in force proposal was “anti-DEI” – even though they won’t commit to any of our DEI proposals around hiring or promotions and are only offering a toothless DEI committee.
Management is trying to divide us by pitting longer-tenured employees against employees from underrepresented groups. But what it really comes down to is they want to lay off whoever they want, whenever they want and don’t want to commit to paying anyone severance. We’re here to tell you our union cares about all of our members regardless of their age or race or gender or any other identity, and we will fight for you.
The three-hour session kicked off with a discussion around our leaves of absence proposal. Our proposal covered parental and caregiver leave, sabbaticals, book/creative leave, general leave, jury duty, voting time and military leave. Forbes rejected nearly everything, claiming these leaves are covered under current law or would be part of their proposed FlexibleTime Off policy. Our goal is to give members more than the minimum covered by law. Forbes rejected increasing parental leave to 26 weeks and instead kept it at the current 12. The same for caregiver leave where we proposed 26 weeks and Forbes countered to keep it at 6 weeks. A sabbatical for employees with 5 or more years of tenure and general leave (for situations not covered by specific leaves) were both completely red lined.
We were able to have a discussion around book/creative leave. Forbes currently offers book leave but there’s no standard policy. It’s up to members to negotiate the terms of book leave individually with their managers and HR. We want to have a transparent policy where the terms are clearly outlined. Our proposal called for book/creative leave to be paid. Forbes countered that all book leave would be unpaid and would have to contribute directly to the employees job in order to be approved. To us, this is exactly why book or creative leave should be paid when it connects to a member's work at Forbes.
Ultimately, Forbes wants the ability to limit the types of leave members can take, whether it’s paid or not, and the length of leave. The language Forbes uses in the counterproposal tries to make it seem that they are being generous when it’s the opposite. As is the case in other areas such as DEI and editorial integrity, Forbes isn’t keeping up with media industry peers.
Next, we shifted to the union’s severance proposal. We’ve proposed employees get 12 weeks of severance for the first year they’ve worked at Forbes plus an additional week’s pay for every 6 months worked beyond that. Forbes lawyer Patrick Collins told us they were “rejecting” the proposal and not offering a counter. He said Forbes “has paid severance at times in the past” but was not planning to include severance in the collective bargaining agreement. When we asked management to write down the company’s current practices around severance to have a place to start from as a counter, Patrick replied: “There is no policy, there is no parameter. There is no practice.” Bottom line: Management wants severance (if any is paid at all) to be solely at its discretion. The union believes there should be a transparent calculation for severance that applies to all employees equally.
Next we discussed the union’s reduction in force proposal. In the event of a layoff, we have proposed that the company needs to notify the union of the names of people it plans to layoff and the date of the layoffs. Management’s counter proposal says it shall provide this information “upon request.” Given how long it usually takes management to respond to our requests for information, this could be months. We proposed 30 days notice of layoffs and the opportunity to discuss alternatives to layoffs, such as different roles or buyouts. Management countered with 14 days and no discussion. They also rejected our proposals for the opportunity for volunteers and job swaps, saying volunteers could be considered on a “case-by-case” basis but it’s not something they want to lock into the contract. That’s when Patrick said the quiet part out loud: “There are some employees who are more valued and better than others.”
Our proposals for reduction in force and severance call for reverse seniority order. If Forbes wants to lay people off out of seniority order, the company can do so, but they need to pay a premium. Patrick went on a bizarre tangent alleging this was “anti-DEI,” since it means that the more diverse employees Forbes has hired in the past few years would be laid off first. Patrick, Ali and Joyce tried to pose hypotheticals using our unit chair Andrea Murphy as an example of a longer tenured employee who would be paid more severance than a more recently hired Black employee.
Our response: our reduction in force and severance proposals take into account length of service. Any employee regardless of their race or gender or any other identity will be considered the same. These bizarre contortions to try and divide our unit only prove one point: that Forbes has an institutional problem with diversity in the newsroom because the company has not made it a priority until very recently. Rather than reframing to deflect accountability, they should agree to our DEI counterproposal.
Some housekeeping, back in February 2022 the union filed an unfair labor practice (ULP) charge with the National Labor Relations Board. The charge was about Forbes not negotiating with the union around raises and promotions from July to December 2021. The Board found that our charge has merit and will be going to trial (heard by an administrative law judge) in May.
Follow the progress along at our upcoming bargaining sessions. Your attendance is crucial to push this forward!
Friday, April 14: 10 a.m. - 1 p.m. ET
Tuesday, April 25: 10 a.m. - 1 p.m. ET
Have any questions about the proposals? Reach out to anyone on the bargaining committee.
Want to get involved? We’re always looking for new stewards or BC members. Contact Unit Chair Andrea Murphy: andreadmurphy@gmail.com to learn more.
In solidarity, your bargaining committee,
Merrilee Barton
Alex Konrad
Katie Jennings
Andrea Murphy
Jon Ponciano
