No more furloughs or increases in health care costs.
Double the severance pay. Another employee buyout program that will be guided
by seniority were among the key features of the tentative two-year collective
bargaining agreement between the union representing employees of the
Philadelphia Inquirer and Daily News and parent company Philadelphia Media
Network.
The deal, reached Friday at 11 p.m. following 11 hours of
negotiation, helped avert a strike for Philadelphia’s two largest general
circulation newspapers.
After contracts for the two papers and the one previously
reached for Philly.com are approved by the union’s national organization in
Washington, the Newspaper Guild will schedule ratification votes for next week.
PMN spokeswoman Amy Buckman said management would not
comment on the deal until after the Guild’s ratification vote.
When asked what he thought management got out of the
agreement, Guild Executive Director Bill Ross said it avoided a work stoppage
for the more than 400 employees making up the two newspapers and the website.
“That would have crippled the company,” Ross said. “The
company realized how valuable its employees are and did the right thing. For
us, layoffs are still based on seniority and we have the right to grieve if
they are done improperly, we stopped the bleeding with pay cuts and health care
costs and no more furloughs.”
Source: Philadelphia
Business Journal
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