IAPE Contract Survey – Wages & Hours

With the 2022-23 contract set to expire on June 30, and negotiations beginning in just a few months, we need to hear from IAPE members. Over the next few weeks, we will ask you to complete simple, online survey questions. This week, we would like your feedback on questions about wage increases and hours worked. See your email for a link to today’s survey.

We’ll ask for input on other contract issues as preparations continue, but that doesn’t mean you can’t weigh in with questions of your own. If you have a suggestion for negotiations or an idea for a topic you’d like to see discussed this year, please reach out to your local IAPE Director, or send a note to union@iape1096.org.

Thanks in advance for your feedback.

Tomorrow: Satisfaction, Priorities and Trivia
Watch this space tomorrow for results from surveys conducted over the past two weeks: the IAPE Satisfaction Survey from Jan. 19 and last Thursday’s survey on contract priorities. We’ll include those with tomorrow’s weekly trivia email. And if you have not yet had a chance to respond to last week’s contract trivia question, you have until 11:59 p.m. EST tonight to submit your response. See our website or last Friday’s IAPE email for the question.

New York, it was Great to See You!
Thanks to all who stopped by the union table or our IAPE 101 class yesterday during the first organized IAPE visit to 1211 AOA in almost three years. It was great to be able to visit live and in-person with members once again. IAPE President Jodi Green, IAPE staff and other reps will hold similar meet & greet and Q&A events at several Dow Jones locations as the union gears up for negotiations with Dow Jones—and we’ll have swag! Watch future IAPE email updates for details.

Live From New York: IAPE 101

IAPE 101, the union’s orientation class for newcomers and Q&A session for veteran members, makes its in-person return to 1211 AOA on Wednesday afternoon. If you are working in the office tomorrow, please join IAPE representatives at 2:15 p.m. in The Future Room on the 7th Floor (F07.AR12).

Members working from home or in other locations may join our remote feed. Please register to receive your meeting link at the IAPE Events page.

IAPE 101 is a half-hour class addressing the basics of IAPE membership: What is a union? How does IAPE function? How does IAPE fit into Dow Jones? What are the benefits of union membership? We’ll even have some time for Q&A, especially for those of you who have questions about upcoming contract negotiations.

IAPE Contract Survey
If you haven’t had a chance to respond to the IAPE “30 Issues” survey, you still have some time to tell IAPE reps which negotiation topics are most important to you. Click the link in your email to select your top five, or add an issue of your own.

One More Push for Pittsburgh
IAPE members also have one final chance to sign a letter in support of our NewsGuild siblings on strike at the Pittsburgh Post Gazette. The letter urges those who have been crossing picket lines to support their colleagues and join the strike. Read more about the Pittsburgh strike—starting its fifth month tomorrow—at newsguild.org, and please join the hundreds of others from across the Guild supporting members in Pittsburgh. Sign before 6:00 p.m. EST today!

It’s Back: IAPE Contract Trivia

Read your contract and win a prize!

With contract negotiations on the horizon, we are bringing back a popular initiative to encourage IAPE members to learn more about our collective agreement with Dow Jones: the IAPE contract trivia contest. The rules are simple: each Friday, we will email a contract question to the IAPE membership. Members in good standing* will have one week to find the answer within the current collective agreement between IAPE and Dow Jones, and email that answer as a reply to the emailed trivia question. The following Friday, one winner will be selected at random from all correct responses, and that winning member will receive a $50 gift card from IAPE.

The winner’s name will be announced upon delivery of the following week’s question.

Here’s our first trivia question for 2023:

Either IAPE or Dow Jones may file a written grievance against the other party when either believes a contract violation has occurred, but the contract contains a deadline for filing that written complaint. How many days after the occurrence of the alleged violation does IAPE or Dow Jones have to deliver that complaint? 

Think you know the answer? Send an email to union@iape1096.org and let us know. Not sure? Scroll through our contract, posted on the IAPE website at https://www.iape1096.org/s/2022-2023-CBA-final.pdf, to find the answer.

Good luck and thanks for playing! If you have suggestions for questions you’d like to see answered, please let us know. And, of course, if you have any suggestions for changes you’d like to see in your next contract, send those along too.

*The IAPE contract trivia question is a weekly contest for members of the IAPE/DJ bargaining unit in the United States and Canada, working under the terms of the collective agreement between Dow Jones & Company Inc. and the Independent Association of Publishers’ Employees (IAPE) TNG/CWA Local 1096, AFL-CIO,CLC, in effect from July 1, 2022 – June 30, 2023. IAPE officers, IAPE directors, IAPE staff, fee-paying non-members and non-members in right-to-work states (or new employees not yet paying dues to IAPE) are not eligible for prizes. Contest period lasts through 11:59 PM Eastern Time each Thursday. On Friday, one winner will be selected from the previous week’s correct answers by a random drawing. Winners are limited to one gift card prize every thirty days.

IAPE Contract Survey – 30 Issues

With the 2022-23 contract set to expire on June 30, and negotiations beginning in just a few months, we need to hear from IAPE members. Over the next few weeks, we will ask you to complete simple, online survey questions. This week, we would like to know about your contract priorities. See the link in your email to take this survey.

This is your chance to tell your IAPE reps which issues are most important to you as we prepare for bargaining. Over the next few weeks, we’ll also ask questions about pay, healthcare benefits and other issues, but that doesn’t mean you can’t weigh in with questions of your own. If you have a suggestion for negotiations or an idea for a topic you’d like to see discussed this year, please reach out to your local IAPE Director, or send a note to union@iape1096.org.

Thanks in advance for your feedback.

Sign on to Support the Pittsburgh Guild
Many thanks to the IAPE members who have signed a letter drafted by our NewsGuild siblings in Pittsburgh, to be delivered to strike breakers next week. Rank and file Guild members from across our international union have signed to let anyone crossing Post Gazette picket lines know that they are hurting their striking colleagues.

TNG members in Pittsburgh will continue to collect signatures until 5:00 p.m. EST on Friday. If you are interested in adding your name to this effort, please sign today!

Directors Wanted

The IAPE Board of Directors consists of volunteer members from across all union-represented areas of Dow Jones. These are your colleagues who work side-by-side with fellow members every day, and they speak for you as representatives addressing all IAPE matters.

Occasionally, vacancies occur on the Board as members are promoted into management or leave the company. Currently, IAPE is looking for members to fill three Board seats: Classification Director - News, Classification Director - Sales/Administrative, and Location Director - Southwest.

If you are interested in filling any of these vacancies for the remainder of this term—ending Nov. 30—or you would like to suggest the name of a coworker you think would be perfect for one of these roles, or if you would like more information about what becoming an IAPE Board member entails, please contact our office.

Heads Up: Texts From TNG
Starting at 5:30 p.m. EST today, NewsGuild members on strike in Pittsburgh will begin texting union members who have previously provided mobile numbers to TNG. You may be on that list.

Texts to members will call attention to the ongoing struggle in Pittsburgh, where members have been locked in a labor dispute since October of last year. Messages will seek support and even subscriptions to the local strike publication, the Pittsburgh Union Progress.

Survey Reminder
Thanks to all who have already responded to the 2023 IAPE Satisfaction Survey. We’ve received some great feedback so far! If you have not had an opportunity to submit your survey yet, we’ll keep it open for a few more days. See the link in your email to answer our 23 for ’23

How are we Doing?

The 2023 IAPE Satisfaction Survey

We are trying something a little different today. Contract negotiations with Dow Jones are set to begin later this year, and soon we will start delivery of our usual member surveys seeking input on various contract proposals. Before we do, we would like your thoughts on how IAPE operates as a whole and what we can do to improve.

How satisfied are you with your IAPE experience? How would you describe your IAPE representation? Today, we’re kicking off what we hope will become an annual exercise: the IAPE Satisfaction Survey.

We have 23 questions for this 2023 survey, and we would appreciate your assessment of IAPE as an organization. Your responses will assist your union in improving communications, outreach and performance.

Overall results will be published when the survey concludes next week, but all submissions will remain anonymous unless members choose to identify themselves for follow up contact. Responses to long-answer questions will not be published.

So, tell us: how are we doing?

(IAPE members, see your email for survey links.)

Wednesday: Support the HarperCollins Union

Rally Outside 1211 AOA at 12:30 p.m.

IAPE is a proud supporter of our striking News Corp siblings at HarperCollins. Wednesday will mark 50 days since members of HarperCollins Union, UAW Local 2110 walked off the job. To call attention to their fight for a fair contract, those members will hold a rally outside News Corp headquarters starting at 12:30 p.m.

Any IAPE members working in the office tomorrow are cordially invited to attend. If you have an IAPE t-shirt to wear and you don’t mind short sleeves in 50° temperatures, please feel free to show your union affiliation!

The HC union represents more than 250 employees in editorial, sales, publicity, design, legal, and marketing departments. The union is bargaining for higher pay, a greater commitment to diversifying staff, and stronger union protection. Negotiations started in December 2021 and HarperCollins Union employees have been without a contract since April 2022.

About In-Office Work

IAPE is aware of yesterday’s email delivered to all News Corp staff, “A Note From Robert Thomson” under the subject line, “An Update on In-Office Work.” We especially note this section:

“I am asking the heads of our businesses to consult with their managers, and ultimately all of you, to ensure full compliance with in-office work schedules, so that what exists in theory happens in practice. Those schedules will evolve in coming weeks, but the net result must be that more people return more frequently to our offices. Attendance is an absolute imperative as collaboration and cooperation are priorities for each of our businesses.”

Under the terms of the negotiated agreement between IAPE and Dow Jones, “If any departmental plan is implemented or changed to require in-office work and/or to require more days per week/month of in-office work, the Company will provide employees and the union with not less than 45-days’ notice.”

No such notice has been provided to the union.

Currently, “full compliance with in-office work schedules” means reporting to the office on the number of days required by business unit plans negotiated with the union. Nothing more.

Finally, we question the timing of yesterday’s memo from Mr. Thomson, considering that management in the Washington bureau sent the following message to all staff this week: “With this particularly contagious form of Covid going around, we have seen an uptick in bureau colleagues testing positive. Please test yourself regularly before coming to the office; thanks.”

If you have questions about your in-office working requirements, please contact IAPE.

Layoffs, the Day After

Late yesterday, IAPE received a formal notice from Dow Jones of the company’s decision to eliminate 22 union-represented positions via layoff. The effective date for all job cuts is Feb. 10, exactly 30 days after the date of the layoff notice.

The 30-day notice period is a contractual requirement. While many of these affected employees have been asked to cease working immediately, all will still remain on active payroll until their separation dates. Severance pay will be issued in the first pay period after those separations, and extended medical coverage will begin in March.

Severance pay, medical coverage, retraining allowances and outplacement assistance are also negotiated benefits guaranteed by the IAPE contract.

IAPE members are no strangers to position eliminations, as anyone can see from reviewing the union’s records of Dow Jones layoffs. And compared to recent news from other companies, the loss of 22 positions may not seem significant.

Unless you’re one of the 22.

Of the jobs lost yesterday, members ranged from the very-recently-hired to 29-year veterans. Positions were cut from several departments, mostly with assigned working locations of New York or Princeton, but also affecting staff in Chicago and Los Angeles. And while Dow Jones is not required to provide IAPE with details of layoffs affecting non-union staff, we are mindful of media reports suggesting Dow Jones cut between one and two percent of the workforce from its global roster yesterday. Whether those who were impacted by layoffs are IAPE-represented or not, they are our colleagues and our friends, and we are disappointed management has once again chosen to boost its bottom line at the expense of those responsible for Dow Jones’ success.

IAPE is currently reviewing all notices of layoffs for union-represented positions to ensure seniority protections were followed, and to make sure that employees who are eligible to volunteer to resign and receive severance in lieu of their less-senior colleagues are aware of that contractual option.

IAPE is not aware of any additional layoffs to come. If they happen, we’ll be here.

Layoffs at Dow Jones

The union has been informed by Dow Jones management that the company intends to eliminate a number of positions today via layoff. At this time, the total number of jobs, working locations and departments of affected employees is unknown. This does appear to be a global effort, with employees outside the United States also receiving invitations to layoff meetings.

IAPE will keep all members apprised of further developments. As formal layoff notices are delivered to the union, the IAPE website layoff page will be updated. IAPE does not expect to receive formal notices from management until the end of the day.

Under the terms of the collective agreement between IAPE and Dow Jones, employees affected by layoff must receive at least 30 days’ advance notice of the company’s intention to eliminate their positions. Similar notice must also be delivered to the union. Layoffs of IAPE-represented employees require payment of severance, extended medical benefits and other post-termination benefits, all guaranteed and protected by the IAPE contract.

Dow Jones is also obligated to follow the rule of seniority when eliminating positions via layoff. Seniority protection is determined by an employee’s hire date, relative to others with the same job title, working in the same department and assigned to the same location. Definition of “department” has caused problems for IAPE in the past.

The union will provide more details as they become available. If you have received an invitation to a meeting to discuss “organizational changes” and you have questions about your status, please contact the IAPE office.