Sixty Days: IAPE Demands Negotiations

The collective bargaining agreement between IAPE and Dow Jones is set to expire on June 30, 2023. Article XXVI of that agreement states, “Negotiations for the renewal, modification or extension of this contract may be instituted by either party within sixty (60) days prior to its expiration.”

Yesterday, IAPE President Jodi Green delivered to Dow Jones management a notice announcing the union’s intention to negotiate a new contract with Dow Jones. Late yesterday afternoon, Dow Jones responded: “Letter received Jodi. We’ll be in touch with our response.”

IAPE looks forward to a productive season of negotiations toward an agreement addressing the needs of all IAPE-represented employees.

Return to Office: More People, More Days?
This morning, management advised the union it intends to require more employees to work from Dow Jones office space three days per week. With certain exceptions—notably Data Strategy, Finance GFO, most groups within Customer Service and some staff in WSJ Print Services—the company will communicate an expectation for employees to work in-office three days per week.

The union’s Board of Directors is reviewing this announcement, along with company plans to discontinue Covid guidelines and the process for requesting in-office exceptions. Employees will now be required to submit a request for an Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) Request for Accommodation form.

The union expects to meet and discuss these plans with Dow Jones management very soon.

1211 AOA Desk Space
Last week, IAPE representatives met with WSJ News management and representatives from Dow Jones Legal to hear more details about plans for desk hoteling at the company’s New York offices.

As a result of the loss of space on the ninth floor at 1211 AOA, management has announced plans for New York staff to share desk space, with a requirement to reserve desks in advance using the iOffice portal.

Feedback received from IAPE members working in New York suggests this is a less-than-popular idea.

IAPE has shared with management the overwhelmingly negative responses received through member surveys and has delivered counter-proposals to the company. Those include dedicated desk space for employees with consistent equipment set-up needs due to production or ergonomic requirements, dedicated desk space for employees who consistently work at least three days per week from the office, and an elimination of in-office mandates for News employees involved in production, but not reporting—including publishing editors, platform editors, newsletter editors and rewrite editors.

The union is awaiting a response from the company.

Layoffs . . . Again
As Dow Jones slithers along toward meeting the announced News Corp goal of an elimination of five percent of staff during this calendar year, the company has delivered additional layoff notices to the union.

In addition to the announced slashing of 22 positions on Jan. 11, Dow Jones advised IAPE of four layoffs on Mar. 16 and three position eliminations on Apr. 18. Last Thursday, the company delivered ten new layoff notices to the union.

All recent position eliminations have been logged on the union’s website layoff page. If you have questions about the layoff process, please contact IAPE.

Contract Trivia: Union Leave

Congratulations to Princeton member Daria Pettus, this week’s winner of our 2023 trivia contest and a $50 prize. Daria’s entry was selected from several correct responses to Monday’s question about probation periods for new employees: Dow Jones has nine months (excluding any periods of disability) from the date of hiring to discharge an employee without risking a grievance from the union (see Article VI - Job Security, Section A).

As we get closer and closer to the expiry date of the current contract between IAPE and Dow Jones, the union’s Board of Directors is busily reviewing current contract language and draft proposals for a new agreement. Next weekend, IAPE directors will gather in New York for the biennial meeting of the IAPE Board where the contract will be a key topic for discussion. The contract actually provides union directors with the ability to take time away from work to attend union meetings.

Under the terms of the IAPE/DJ contract, how many days of unpaid leave may IAPE directors take to attend biennial Board of Directors’ meetings?

hink you know? Email your response to union@iape1096.org. Not sure? Scroll through our contract posted on the IAPE website to find the relevant section. Members in good standing* will have until Thursday at midnight  to find the answer within the current collective agreement between IAPE and Dow Jones, and email that answer back to us. This Friday, one winner will be selected at random from all the correct responses, and that winning member will receive a $50 prize from IAPE.

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*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 prize every thirty days.

Contract Trivia: Probation

Congratulations to Princeton member Laurie Avino, Friday’s winner of our 2023 trivia contest and a $50 prize. Laurie’s entry was selected from several correct responses to our April 7th question: the IAPE contract recognizes the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) for purposes of determining overtime eligibility (see Article II - Hours and Overtime, Section E).

On to this week’s question (delayed, due to Friday’s recap of IAPE news).

One of the most important provisions in any Union contract is protection against termination without just and sufficient cause. However, many collective bargaining agreements also contain a window of time, sometimes referred to as a “probationary period,” during which a Company may decide a new employee simply isn’t the right person for a particular job.

Under the terms of the IAPE/DJ contract, how much time does Dow Jones management have to discharge a newly hired employee without risking a grievance from the Union?

Think you know? Email your response to union@iape1096.org. Not sure? Scroll through our contract posted on the IAPE website to find the relevant section. Members in good standing* will have until Thursday at midnight  to find the answer within the current collective agreement between IAPE and Dow Jones, and email that answer back to us. This Friday, one winner will be selected at random from all the correct responses, and that winning member will receive a $50 prize from IAPE.

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*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 prize every thirty days.

Washington Members Support Evan

IAPE Week in Review

On Wednesday, IAPE representatives in Washington organized a demonstration to support jailed WSJ reporter Evan Gershkovich outside the World Bank building where International Monetary Fund meetings were taking place.

WSJ staffers were joined by journalists and NewsGuild members from the Forward, the Jewish Telegraphic Agency and Reuters to send a message to delegates and make their case to reporters and photographers covering the global financial meeting.

In an interview with AFP, IAPE Treasurer Austen Hufford said, “we just want the world to know that we’re thinking about Evan, that we want him to be released, that journalism is not a crime and that he was doing nothing wrong.”

IAPE’s DC team has kindly shared these photos from Wednesday’s protest:

Show us Your Buttons!
On Tuesday, IAPE President Jodi Green and Administrative Officer Kaitlyn Frarey met with members in New York and handed out “Free Evan Now” buttons, as well as IAPE coffee mugs and notebooks. Buttons from IAPE have now been distributed in New York, Washington and San Francisco, and are being delivered to other bureaus.

To continue displaying support for Evan Gershkovich, IAPE encourages all members to share images widely on their preferred social media platforms.

Join the Pride Caucus at CWA!
The Pride Caucus at IAPE’s parent union, the Communications Workers of America, recently relaunched and is inviting queer and allied members of the CWA family to join. Interested IAPE members can register here.

As its first item of new business, the Caucus has drafted a petition calling on allied legislators in the House and Senate to join CWA in the fight to end trans genocide. Please sign and share!

How do you Identify?
Since we’re on the subject, if you haven’t submitted a response to IAPE’s short survey on how you identify, we invite you to participate. As of now, we’ve received a relatively low response rate of a little less than 160 out of 1,400+ union-represented employees.

Staff received inquiries from IAPE-represented employees with interest in finding out how their gender expression and/or gender identity may impact areas such as performance reviews, pay increases, and other workplace concerns. With the limited responses thus far, it would be difficult to extrapolate any possible connections between this self-reported data and the areas of interest, but we hope with your help we can continue to compile aggregate data to improve what information we can provide.

As always, if you have workplace questions or suggestions for how the union can better support you, feel free to send us an email at union@iape1096.org.

IAPE Trivia - Postponed
The weekly IAPE Contract Trivia Contest has been postponed for today and will return on Monday morning.

Contract Trivia: Working Overtime

Congratulations to New York member Christina Masso-Gonzalez, today’s winner of our 2023 trivia contest and a $50 prize. Christina’s entry was selected from several correct responses to our question from Monday: incentive payments must be paid within three months of being earned as defined in the respective incentive plan (see Article XXIV - Miscellaneous, Section F).

We hope everyone saw Wednesday’s update announcing that a grievance over automatic cash out of comp time has finally been resolved. Comp time is available to employees who are considered exempt from overtime when they are assigned work on a scheduled day off. This rule does not apply to all IAPE-represented employees. In fact, slightly more than half of all bargaining unit employees are considered overtime-eligible. And that brings us to this week’s contract question:

Which U.S. federal statute does the IAPE contract recognize for purposes of determining overtime eligibility?

Think you know? Email your response to union@iape1096.org. Not sure? Scroll through our contract posted on the IAPE website to find the relevant section. Members in good standing* will have until Thursday at midnight  to find the answer within the current collective agreement between IAPE and Dow Jones, and email that answer back to us. This Friday, one winner will be selected at random from all the correct responses, and that winning member will receive a $50 prize from IAPE.

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*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 prize every thirty days.

Comp Time Grievance Resolved

Finally, you can automatically exchange your time for cash!

A long-awaited update to Workday for Dow Jones employees will allow IAPE-represented staff to cash out comp time hours without sending a request form to HR. The new, automatic process resolves a grievance filed by the union . . . in 2020.

Overtime-exempt employees are now able to request a cash out of comp time hours using Workday self-service. At the “Time Off” tab within Workday, employees should select the “Compensatory Hours Cashout” option and enter the number of compensatory hours to cash out. Once a request is approved, comp time hours will be converted to cash and paid in the following pay period.

A step-by-step user guide is available on the IAPE website and is also posted on the Dow Jones intranet.

A 2019 contract agreement between IAPE and Dow Jones provided for automatic recording and cashing out of comp time via Workday. Upgrade delays prevented Dow Jones from implementing necessary Workday updates, prompting IAPE to file a grievance on Jul. 23, 2020. Workday was upgraded in April of 2021 to calculate comp time at a required rate of 1.5 times hours worked.

Comp time is defined in Article II of the collective agreement between IAPE and Dow Jones, and is earned when overtime-exempt employees are assigned work on scheduled days off. Additional union guides to comp time—and overtime, for overtime-eligible employees—are available at iape1096.org/overtime-comp-time.

By agreement between IAPE and Dow Jones, employees eligible to receive—and cash out—comp time include reporters, special writers, software engineers and account executives, among other job titles. Employees with questions about overtime status can contact union@iape1096.org.

Become an IAPE Steward – Join us for Steward 101!
As anyone who has been or has needed a union steward knows, volunteer stewards are the backbone of any union. Stewards are vital points of contact for unions, especially during contract negotiations when funneling bargaining information to and from the general membership plays such a key role in building support for the bargaining process and achieving contract improvements.

IAPE is always on the lookout for members willing to join the union steward ranks. If you would like to learn more about what being an IAPE steward entails, and if you have a few minutes to spare Wednesday afternoon at 2:00 p.m. EDT, please join us for our next edition of IAPE Steward 101. To register, please visit the IAPE Events page.

NewsGuild-CWA Calls on Biden to Secure Release of Wall Street Journal Reporter Detained in Russia

Media contact: (202) 434-1175 jschleuss@cwa-union.org

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

https://newsguild.org/newsguild-cwa-calls-on-biden-to-secure-release-of-wall-street-journal-reporter-detained-in-russia/

NewsGuild-CWA Calls on Biden to Secure Release of Wall Street Journal Reporter Detained in Russia

April 4, 2023

Read the letter

The NewsGuild-CWA, the largest union of journalists and media workers in North America, called on President Biden and his administration to take all necessary steps to secure the immediate release of Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich, who was arrested by Russian authorities last week.

Evan Gershkovich has a distinguished record of reporting on the Kremlin's war efforts, profiling Russian dissidents and covering the stories of wartime life in border towns in Russia and Ukraine. His recent work has exposed the Russian government's attempts to squash dissent and discourage antiwar protests, as well as highlighting the inner workings of President Vladimir Putin's advisory circle.

NewsGuild-CWA President Jon Schleuss expressed appreciation for President Biden's call for Russia to release Mr. Gershkovich and for U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken's conversation with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov on the matter. However, Schleuss urged the U.S. administration to work swiftly with Roger D. Carstens, special envoy for hostage affairs, to designate Mr. Gershkovich as wrongfully detained under the Robert Levinson Hostage Recovery and Hostage-Taking Accountability Act.

President Schleuss implored President Biden to use the full force of his office and the diplomatic resources at his disposal to secure Mr. Gershkovich's release, engage with international partners to amplify this message, and to provide support to Mr. Gershkovich's family during this difficult time.

"Journalism is not a crime,” Schleuss said. “No journalist should be arrested for doing their job."

Schleuss also urged restraint in any retaliation against Russian journalists in the United States, emphasizing that a reduction in the number of journalists working in the U.S. would not be beneficial.

Schleuss emphasized the importance of press freedom and the protection of journalists worldwide as cornerstones of democratic societies and called on the U.S. administration to stand up for the rights and safety of journalists.

The NewsGuild-CWA represents journalists and media workers at more than 240 news organizations in the U.S., Canada and Puerto Rico, including those at The Wall Street Journal. While Mr. Gershkovich is based overseas and not a member of the union, his colleagues are standing with him, denouncing his arrest and demanding his release. 

About The NewsGuild-CWA
The NewsGuild’s represents about 26,000 workers including journalists, interpreters, translators, workers at organizations dedicated to fighting for social justice and the staff of nonprofit organizations. The NewsGuild is a sector of the Communications Workers of America (CWA), which represents workers in telecommunications and information technology, the airline industry, health care, public service and education, manufacturing and other fields.

Contract Trivia: Incentive Payments

Congratulations to Princeton member Sangeeta Bohra, Friday’s winner of our 2023 trivia contest and a $50 prize. Sangeeta’s entry was selected from several correct responses to our question from Mar. 24: the five Dow Jones departments specifically excluded from IAPE coverage are Executive, Legal and Labor Relations, Human Resources/People (including IT personnel exclusively supporting the HR/People Department), Information Security, and Internal Audit  (see Article I - Scope of Agreement, Section B).

Friday was March 31 and the end of the third quarter in the Dow Jones fiscal year. While segment payments will soon be calculated for many IAPE-represented employees compensated under sales incentive plans, there is a waiting period before commissions and bonuses are paid. The contract actually provides the company with a (very) significant amount of time to make payments, which brings us to this week’s question:

How soon after incentives are earned must they be paid by the company?

Think you know? Email your response to union@iape1096.org. Not sure? Scroll through our contract posted on the IAPE website to find the relevant section. Members in good standing* will have until Thursday at midnight  to find the answer within the current collective agreement between IAPE and Dow Jones, and email that answer back to us. This Friday, one winner will be selected at random from all the correct responses, and that winning member will receive a $50 prize from IAPE.

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*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.

Support For Evan

One day after learning Evan Gershkovich was detained by Russian security agents, WSJ staffers are pushing back on the ridiculous assertion their colleague is a spy.

Co-workers are sharing Evan’s incredible work covering Russia and Ukraine. The Committee to Protect Journalists has called for Evan’s release “immediately and without conditions.”

You can show your support, too. We invite all IAPE members, and Dow Jones employees everywhere, to change their avatar today to the image below this message. This file is available for downloading here, or via the IAPE website.

WSJ Editor in Chief Emma Tucker has encouraged staff to use the hashtag #istandwithevan in social-media posts. You can also share these items from IAPE Twitter, Instagram and Facebook.

“Free Evan Now” buttons will be available from IAPE next week.

We Stand With Evan

This morning, we awoke to the terrible news that WSJ reporter Evan Gershkovich has been detained by the Federal Security Service in Russia.

A native of Princeton, NJ, Evan has worked as a reporter in Russia since 2017.

While IAPE only represents employees located in the United States and Canada, we stand in solidarity with our colleague, Evan. We support and echo management’s call for his immediate release.