Shop Paper #29: Management Regresses on Remote Work – and Hopes We Won’t Notice
After a nine-week summer hiatus, we had a bargaining session on August 14th. This session was held at Ogletree Deakins’ office in Manhattan. To kick things off we were told by Forbes that they didn’t have a counter on wages. Disappointing but not surprising as management continues to take every opportunity to drag their feet. We’ll continue to show up prepared and ready to fight for our values and protections we deserve.
Despite taking a break of over two months, management had just two counters for us. Forbes’ counter on Remote Work was, sadly, a big step back from where we were the last time we discussed this issue in April. We had proposed a 120 day notice period if Forbes wanted to change a member’s status from remote and require them to be in the office. Forbes had agreed to that in its last counter but in the most recent version has not only reduced the period but introduced geographic limits. Forbes has offered a 90 day notice period for employees who live more than 25 miles from a Forbes office and just 30 days to folks living within 25 miles of an office. Forbes offered no explanation for this change other than their thinking has changed. This is regressive, nonsensical, and, simply put, unacceptable. With a few exceptions, our members have been working remotely since March of 2020, and require more than a month of notice to adjust their schedules and come into the office on a regular basis.
Their second counter was on temporary employees.The biggest change was extending the period a temp had to work before being offered a full-time position to 18 months. This is worse than their current practice of keeping temps for a year before deciding whether to offer them a full-time job. Another egregious counter from Forbes. Management can’t keep using temporary workers as a way to avoid hiring full-time. There is a place for temps in the newsroom but it’s not at the expense of full-time jobs.
Health & Safety was up next. This is one proposal where we are close. We put our counter on the table which focuses on a number of things most importantly keeping members safe from doxxing and online harassment. One sticking point is our language that wouldn’t require members to cross a picket line while at work. This provision is about safety of members and solidarity with other unions.
Outside Work, a new proposal from us, covers which types of work a member needs to get approval from Forbes.This proposal clarifies which types of work need to be approved by a supervisor. We feel that approval should be given unless the outside work interferes with an employee’s work for Forbes, is for a competitor or would create an ethical or journalistic conflict. We had a fairly productive conversation about outside work.
We ended the day with our package proposal on Severance, Reduction in Force and AI. As a reminder, Forbes completely rejected our severance proposal and rejected the majority of our reduction in force proposal. We’ve put severance back on the table and added in language to the RIF proposal that the company’s use of generative AI may not result in layoffs. Adding this language to the RIF proposal was to address Forbes’ concern that the language didn’t belong in our AI proposal. The idea of putting these together as a package is that Forbes needs to agree to all three. If Forbes is serious about not letting AI result in layoffs, they’ll agree to it.
Have questions? Reach out to anyone on the bargaining committee! We’re all happy to discuss anything.
Want to get involved? We’re always looking for new stewards or BC members. Contact Unit Chair Andrea Murphy: andrea...@gmail.com to learn more.
Let's keep up the good fight. Your participation strengthens our solidarity and our power at the bargaining table. Keep following, keep supporting, and let's achieve the contract we all deserve.
–Your Bargaining Committee
Emily Baker-White
Zach Everson
Andrea Murphy
Hank Tucker
