May's Ongoing Issues & Concerns

These are some of the issues we are looking into and keeping an eye on:

Holiday scheduling

The Guild is investigating an issue involving scheduling of part-timers on a holiday.

Artists not doing work online

The Guild is investigating the exclusion of advertising artists from some online products.

UPDATE: The company has been given a list of online duties the Guild believes are already being done by Guild members. The Guild is waiting for a response.

New South Portland zoning equipment

The Guild is investigating the work managers are performing relative to the new zoning equipment.

UPDATE: The investigation has not turned up any grievances. The Guild will continue to monitor the situation going forward.

Seniority scheduling

The Guild is looking into a seniority scheduling issue between the day and night shift in South Portland.

UPDATE: The investigation continues on this matter.

Minimum mileage

The Guild is investigating to see if all members have been getting paid the daily/monthly mileage reimbursement correctly.

UPDATE: The Guild has received the information request from the company. Several Guild members who have been designated by the company as required to have their automobile have not been receiving the minimum mileage payment. The Guild will be contacting affected members and pursuing the matter further with the company.

Travel time

The Guild is investigating a situation where a manager refused to count travel time within Portland as part of a member’s work day.

UPDATE: The Guild is waiting for the company’s response.

Unapproved overtime

The Guild is investigating a situation where a member was disciplined for working “unapproved overtime.”

UPDATE: The Guild has received the information request from the company. The matter is being pursued with the company and will be before the grievance committee shortly.

Expressline

The Guild is looking into why some Guild members working on the Expressline aren’t being paid for work done in a higher classification.

UPDATE: The company has agreed to pay the 10 percent distribution specialist premium to the distribution assistant in this case. Distribution group leaders and supervisors will be present during production so distribution assistants will not be responsible for those higher functions going forward. The grievance committee has voted to dismiss as resolved.

Terminations on probation

The Guild is looking into the terminations of employees while on probation.

 UPDATE: A ULP related to violation of protected activities has been filed.

Convergence

There have been a number of issues raised in the relationship between print and online mediums. These issues include reporters being asked to write separates for online, sales people being asked to sell into online, and having online write for print. The contract calls for a New Media committee of company and Guild representatives, so we’re going to address these issues in that forum, hopefully successfully.

UPDATE: The Guild has met with the company about blogs. The company did agree to waive timelines on this matter as we continue to learn about the process. When the Guild received the letter to toll on this matter, the company included an assertion that any reporter refusing to blog would be considered insubordinate. The Guild has responded that we disagree with this and reserve all our rights moving forward.