Village Voice Union Press Release -- July 1, 2014
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: VILLAGE VOICE UNION WILL SET STRIKE DEADLINE
Hello again, other reporters. It feels like just yesterday that we wrote to you (because it was). Unfortunately, it's been a very bad 24 hours.
Yesterday, our bargaining committee met for a 13-hour marathon meeting with management, beginning at 11 a.m. and ending after midnight. It was an extremely heated conversation -- our veteran union representative told us she's never experienced anything quite like it in all her years representing Voice employees.
We'll cut to the chase: the meeting was not a success. We have been unable to come to an agreement with management over wages, healthcare, working conditions and other basic contract terms.
As a result, our membership voted today to authorize the bargaining committee to set a strike deadline. The vote was unanimous.
This is a serious step. It allows our bargaining committee to set a date to reach an agreement with management. If we cannot reach an agreement by that day, we will go on strike. We want you to understand why we've gotten to this point.
- Right now, Voice union members pay nothing towards our healthcare premium. That is a right we have won over decades of collective bargaining. In the past, management has offered decent healthcare coverage as a trade-off for our relatively low wages.
Now, they want to increase our healthcare costs by a staggering amount, while giving us a pittance of a "raise" that will not make up the difference.
To keep our current, very basic healthcare plan, a single employee with no children will have to pay over $200 per month beginning immediately. A person with children will pay $740. We are also being offered a "basic plan" that is slightly cheaper, but comes with higher co-pays, much higher out of pocket costs, higher rates for emergency care, and higher costs for medication.
And here's what so upsetting to us: the grand total that management will save by raising our healthcare costs is $8,494.84 per year.
We repeat: $8,494.84 per year. Total. Not per person.
Management is fighting with us -- management is willing to risk a strike -- over $8,500 a year. They could hold a carwash, or sell one of the televisions in our conference room, and find $8,500 a year.
Under the new plan, if just one of our members needs to see a specialist who is outside of our network, he or she could end up paying $10,000 out of pocket—that's more than it would cost the company to keep all of us on our current plan for an entire year.
- In return for decimating our healthcare, management has offered us a raise of between $30 and $35 a week. It wouldn't make up the difference for what we'd lose in healthcare costs. It's barely even a cost of living increase.
Management's stinginess is particularly galling given the fact that in past negotiations, we agreed to allow them to temporarily stop contributing to employees' 401k accounts. They were supposed to begin contributing again this year. We have told them, though, that we would allow the moratorium to continue.
That alone would save the company $90,000 over the three year contract. Even that major concession has not been enough to persuade them to make us a decent offer.
- Management has refused to maintain the basic rights that make our work environment more tolerable. The proposal they gave us will, among other things:
- Eliminate childcare benefits for all part-time employees and full-time employees with less than a year of service.
- Slash maternity leave to the minimum permitted under federal law.
- Eliminate the paid position of Affirmative Action/Diversity Coordinator, the staff member tasked with making sure the Voice is a diverse and inclusive workplace. Under our contract, a staff member takes on this position and makes a small stipend for doing this work.
Management had originally demanded that this position be completely eliminated. Now, they say it would be fine for that person to continue to do the work. For free. This demonstrates to us that management isn't even remotely committed to diversity in the workplace. They're not even willing to pay lip service to the idea.
In addition, the company has rejected many of our other requests: a guaranteed minimum salary for staff writers. An increase in commissions for our tireless, very underpaid sales staff. Improvements in layoff benefits. They won't even make a commitment to hire people to the many vacant positions in the office.
They won't even agree to improve our damn coffee.
Now, you may have some questions. We'd like to answer the most common one preemptively.
Isn't the Voice almost broke? What makes you think they have another dime to give you?
NO, they are not. In past negotiations, management has told us that the company is in serious financial straits, and cuts are necessary to stay afloat. That is not the case this year.
Both during negotiations and before, we've been told by our bosses that the company is doing OK. They are safely in the black for the first time in a long time. That's because our payroll costs are much smaller, while our SEO profits have risen, and our page-views are better than they've been in a very long time.
Management is not making this terrible offer to save the company. They're doing it to make themselves a few more bucks, and they're doing it on our backs.
Management's offer is intolerable. It reeks of contempt for us as employees, for the work that we do, and for our future with the company.
Our bargaining committee will set a date for us to go on strike. If we cannot reach an acceptable agreement by that date, we will walk off the job for an undetermined amount of time.
To close, we want to make one more thing clear:
We're proud to work here. Many of us have admired this paper since we were teenagers. We don't want to go on strike. We want to come to work every day and continue building this paper into the best possible institution it can be.
We love our jobs, and we take pride in our workplace and in each other. Does management feel the same way?
