Shop Paper #4: Last week's bargaining session and management's first counter proposals
August 9, 2022
Hi Shop F!
Two weeks after our previous session, we were back at the bargaining table on Tuesday, August 9, for a three-hour meeting with management that yielded some progress in a couple of our first proposals.
Before jumping into that, however, we received a response to our questions last session about the hiring freeze imposed last month, and felt it important to share. Though members from across the newsroom were told of a hiring freeze throughout July, management refused to acknowledge it. Instead, management sent a statement claiming “there is no hiring freeze” and that Forbes is actively hiring. There’s one thing we know for sure: Many of our unit members have tirelessly taken on the roles and responsibilities of departed colleagues with no additional compensation, no respite from their existing duties, and no new hires on their teams. And a quick search of the Forbes Careers page shows the jobs listed (whether they are on hold or not), do not track with the number of open roles we know to exist in the newsroom from the amount of turnover we’ve seen across teams in recent months. We expected management to respect and understand the importance and urgency in these questions given how chronic understaffing affects our unit members, so it’s disappointing to see the lack of transparency even as we attempt to build a productive relationship.
On to the session: After waiting 15 minutes for Forbes counsel Patrick Collins, who showed up late, we kicked things off by asking to see counters to any of the 29 proposals we sent management back in March and June. Collins deflected the question, as he would go on to do several times, and instead requested we discuss our grievance and arbitration proposal. We obliged.
Management insisted the timeframes we've proposed to investigate unit member grievances are "very long" and spent a disappointingly unproductive amount of time pondering the technical definition of working days. Management ultimately said it would likely propose 5 to 10 calendar days (versus our window of 60 working days) for grievances that do not involve employee discharge and also said it would propose a smaller joint committee to handle arbitration. It's critical that employee grievances are heard and addressed properly, so we will fight for a contract that does just that. In the meantime, we look forward to management’s counter proposal.
After spending 30 minutes discussing the grievances proposal, we asked to see any counters, but were—again—shut down. Instead, management decided to voice its opposition to our byline proposal, which stipulates that unit members have the right to remove their byline from a piece if they protest its use. Upon being asked why we would propose this, committee members explained three reasons why reporters may want to withdraw their byline—surrounding editorial integrity, worker safety, and in the rarest of cases, editing that does not accurately or fairly reflect one’s reporting. This conversation clearly demonstrated that Collins lacks a basic, foundational understanding of the media industry and its workers, and it’s unfortunate to see his lack of preparation as the clock ticks down on the limited time we have to negotiate.
After the back-and-forth, we asked if we could see counter proposals for a third time—to which management replied it wasn’t sure why we would expect counters and then asked to discuss yet another proposal that’s been on the table for five months. At this point, we shut down the request. We presented our first proposals in March and had yet to see a single counter. This deflection is a tactic designed to allow Forbes to control the table and the pace of bargaining, and at this point, we need to start actually exchanging counter proposals in order to bargain over the issues at hand. It took a frustrating amount of pushback, a rather heated exchange and a nearly 30-minute break for management to ultimately agree and come back with their first counters.
It’s important to note here that this deflective tone—which is not only incredibly unproductive but also simply tacking on to Forbes’ legal bill at a time when it’s refusing to backfill critical positions—is effectively endorsed by management when its internal committee members refuse to speak up during discussions. This is now the second session in which both Human Resources Vice President Ali Intres and Managing Editor Joyce Bautista Ferrari have remained silent for virtually the entirety of discussions—including on key issues such as diversity, equity and inclusion, employee privacy and the prohibition of non-disclosure agreements. As Forbes’ counsel mentioned during this session, an open dialogue will be crucial to move these negotiations along—especially if we wish to do so expeditiously, as CEO Mike Federle has mentioned—so we hope the silence from management will come to an end so we can better understand their reasoning on a real-time basis.
As for the counters, we received two of them (for access to personnel files and a union bulletin board), along with a separate proposal on non-discrimination. In its first counter, management suggested employees should be limited to viewing their personnel files once per year. We quickly caucused to find a compromise and ultimately settled with management on allowing employees to view their files twice a year. Disappointingly, however, management still refuses to facilitate physical or digital copies of these files for employees, which is something we plan to fight as we move this proposal forward.
We intentionally spent our July session discussing proposals we believe should lead to quick compromise because we are eager to reach tentative agreements as expeditiously as possible. We hope management begins to move this along as quickly as we are trying to do so and plan to work with them on their first counters. Thank you to our Guild representative Anthony Napoli and Guild counsel Thomas Lamadrid for their ongoing support, and shout out to the roughly 20 unit members who were able to join us this session.
Bargaining will resume again virtually on Thursday, August 25 at 1 p.m. ET (details forthcoming). We’ll see you there.
In the meantime, get involved: We are still looking for new people to join the bargaining committee. Contact Unit Chair Andrea Murphy: andreadmurphy@gmail.com to learn more.
Here’s a rundown of the proposals we discussed.
Grievance & Arbitration — Creates a system to facilitate grievances by Guild members and see that they are properly heard and addressed, by a third party if necessary.
Bulletin Board — The company shall provide a physical space for a bulletin board for union communications, as well as an electronic communications channel on the company intranet.
Bylines — If you don’t want your byline on a story, you can have it removed.
Access to Personnel File — This proposal provides employees the right to review their personnel file upon request, as well as place a response in the file to anything deemed adverse found within.
In solidarity, your bargaining committee:
Merrilee Barton
Katie Jennings
Alex Konrad
Andrea Murphy
Jon Ponciano
