Shop Papers #16 and #17: April 18 and April 25, 2023

Hi Shop F,

Despite having a bargaining session on the book for weeks, management unilaterally decided  to cancel our session planned for Thursday, June 8th. The company is currently demanding that we bargain in person, without a remote option, despite the fact that we have a remote workforce and over half of our bargaining committee lives out-of-state. 

It’s clear the company doesn’t want to allow their employees a window into bargaining.They’d prefer to settle this anti-democratically: out-of-sight, with below-industry standards. 

Management’s behavior  is insulting and lacks integrity.  We won’t let this stand.

Below is a recap of our past two bargaining sessions.

April 25th:  

First, some  good news. At the session on April 25th we reached a tentative agreement on Grievance & Arbitration. Through the grievance and arbitration process, members will be able to pursue formal remedies in the event of a contract violation. This brings the number of TAs to two (the unacceptable news). While we’d all like to be further along after 15 months of bargaining and 29 proposals on the table, having an agreement on grievance is an important part of creating a strong contract. 

 After some back and forth on non-discrimination and just cause, two issues where we are close to TAs, we turned to hours and overtime. Unfortunately we didn’t get very far. Management, represented by Ali Intres and Joyce Bautista Ferrari, wouldn’t acknowledge that a 40 hour work week is a standard week at Forbes. A perfect example of how Forbes is slowing down the bargaining process. Joyce and Ali won’t even agree to something that is laid out in the employee handbook. 

As it now stands, management does not want to be bound by any work week at all – they want all of our time, personal and professional, to belong to them.

Management and their counsel seemed to be baffled by the idea of members being compensated for working more than 40 hours a week and concerned that members might be working less than a 40 hour week. How would these hours be tracked? What pay rate would be used? Forbes’ position is that our salaries cover hours worked and that tracking anything over 40 hours would be difficult and expensive. 

To be clear, many shops in the Guild are compensated in some way for overtime. It’s not an issue.

It will be interesting to see if our work to rule action changes the tone of the conversation around this issue. 

April 18th: 

We had our 16th session on April 18th. The two-hour session kicked off with a discussion on grievance and arbitration. In its counter, management added language around information requests that we accepted with only minor revisions. We also added a line ensuring nothing in the proposal waives our rights to information permitted under the law—or to seek relief from the NLRB if necessary. This proposal is close to a tentative agreement, and it’s once again in management’s court. 

Next, we shifted focus to just cause. After three months with the proposal, management—as represented by Ali Intres and Joyce Bautista Ferrari—came back and said it had not worked on a counter. Despite insisting it wants to reach a collective bargaining agreement as “expeditiously” as possible, it took management three months to say it would not provide an updated response and would instead reject key member protections including providing advanced notice of a union member's discipline or termination, guaranteeing a union representative or steward's presence at disciplinary or discharge meetings, and ensuring appropriate pay for unit members terminated without two weeks' notice. We had already worked to meet in the middle with management, agreeing three months ago that cases of egregious conduct could forego the same standard for advanced notice, yet management gave us nothing else.

After a brief caucus, we worked on another counter—agreeing to some of management's changes but maintaining that a Guild representative or steward should be present at discipline or discharge meetings. This is only fair for our members—especially since management has already shown its willingness to illegally usurp union protections when it terminated one staffer without notice or bargaining last year. We hope management will agree to this crucial protection for members facing discipline, especially after the concessions we have already made to show we are bargaining in good faith.
The final discussion—on our non-discrimination proposal—was perhaps the most frustrating. We’ve been insisting for months management should work to support union members' visa applications as fairly as possible. Management has instead argued not all members are as equally valued or equally skilled, and in its latest response, it rejected the notion that it should use "reasonable" discretion to evaluate whether it will support employee visa applications. Instead, management says it wants to retain its “sole” discretion. Management has already proven its practices and judgment lead to inequity in the newsroom, and now it’s flat out rejecting the opportunity to commit to “reasonable” discretion as it evaluates employees who critically need support. 

The Board Charge

One more important update: , you all received an  email from Ali Intres on the Friday of Memorial Day weekend about our NLRB charge. That was part of the settlement we reached with Forbes over the unfair labor charge we filed back in February 2022. We filed a charge with the National Labor Relations Board that Forbes over failure to bargain over compensation changes (salary changes, job title changes and promotions). Instead of notifying the union about their intent to change people’s job duties – therefore depriving us of an opportunity to bargain for better and more – they bypassed you all. 

We won the case and the settlement included a provision that Forbes had to send out a notice to all bargaining unit members explaining your rights as union members and listing what the company will not do, things like “not make changes to your job position, wages, or other terms and conditions of employment without first notifying the Union and giving the Union an opportunity to bargain.” Please reach out to Andea Murphy if you have any questions about the ULP or the settlement. 

We’re working to schedule our next batch of bargaining sessions for June and July. Keep an eye out for the dates! Your attendance is crucial to push this forward.

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

Andrea Murphy

Jon Ponciano