IAPE officers and directors in May at the NewsGuild of New York headquarters. 

IAPE @ Work: Fall 2018

Engage With IAPE

One of the major benefits of being part of IAPE is having a direct line to company leadership. Whether you want to share your ideas for improvement or bring light to workplace issues, IAPE offers an accessible path to effect real change at Dow Jones. Challenging the status quo doesn’t always require an adversarial approach, and through our regular meetings with company representatives we have pushed for greater focus on pay, diversity and opportunities for advancement.

Our collective bargaining agreement with Dow Jones provides important protections that govern your working life and invaluable benefits to help with everything else—gains won over decades of hard work by rank-and-file employees just like you.

Last weekend, your board of directors spent a day-and-a-half discussing IAPE’s finances, operations and plans for our contract negotiations next year. We also approved a budget for our new fiscal year presented by Treasurer and Finance Committee Chair Joe Walker, who has been taking a hard look at how IAPE spends money since taking office in December.

While your dues provide IAPE leadership the resources to hold the company accountable to the terms of our contract, equally important to our reserves are the countless volunteer hours from our dedicated officers, directors and stewards.

We are always adding to our steward ranks and are devoted to nurturing the next crop of IAPE leaders while making sure your contributions are manageable in your busy schedule. And there are a number of ways for each member to get involved, including sending a quick email to flag a problem in your department, attending one of our events or joining our remote Q&A sessions.  Reach out to union@iape1096.org or email IAPE president Yogita Patel directly to learn more.

IAPE Board Update

Congratulations to two new directors for the Northeast location, reporter Tom Corrigan and sales executive Nicholas Leonardis, both in New York. The board also welcomed reporter Vipal Monga of Toronto, who is taking over the location director vacancy in Canada.

IAPE Settles Medical Premium Grievance, Service Award Dispute

June 29, 2018

Health Premium Overpayments: Last year, IAPE learned that members with POS II Family Coverage had been hit with premium increases that exceeded the limits agreed to in the contract. While the company disagreed with our reading of the contract, in the end Dow Jones agreed to reimburse about 300 IAPE members in bureaus across the continent almost $60,000 in estimated overpayments.

The company will notify all employees who stand to receive health-premium reimbursements, and IAPE will also be reaching out to affected members. These payments will be included in your paychecks and will show up as taxable income.

The excess premium payments came to our attention when an IAPE member noticed that the increase in his family insurance payments exceeded the caps mandated by the contract. Please don't hesitate to contact us about benefits or any other work issue, as problems can arise and we can be of help.

Service Awards:  Dow Jones last year unilaterally canceled this program, which had provided gifts to employees at every 10-year anniversary. IAPE pointed out that the company had an obligation to negotiate with the union over the terms of this employee benefit, and the company acknowledged as much by agreeing to a conversation. Because service awards aren’t a contractual benefit, our best option was to allow the awards program to expire, with the condition that members whose anniversary dates fell last year would receive payments tied to their years of service in lieu of gifts. As a result, 30 IAPE members will receive awards totaling from $200 to $500.

We can't predict the exact timing of the payments from these settlements but expect them to be made soon. Dow Jones typically makes payments within one or two pay periods after settlements are finalized.

IAPE @ Work: Spring 2018

It's almost summer, and we wanted to give you an update of the hard work your officers and directors have been putting in to make sure your voice is heard at Dow Jones. Most important is that we hear from you! Check our upcoming events and training and reach out to your rep to see how you can get involved. 

IAPE Semiannual Board Meeting

IAPE's board of directors met in New York to strategize about ways to serve you and to approve some settlements with the company that we believe are in your interests. Contact your rep for a personal recap! 

Keeping an Eye on Incentive-Plan Changes

IAPE members in sales, it's almost that time of year again. According to our contract, Dow Jones has to give notice to the union 45 days before making any modifications. Directors Cinda Coldwell and Sal Ahmed are heading up the incentives committee and want to hear your concerns and questions about the new plans. Check your inbox for a survey about this year's changes that will guide our response to the company. 

Important Developments for NewsTech Employees

The 50 or so IAPE-represented Dow Jones employees who will be transferred to a new company—NewsTech—are at risk of losing their union protections. This is because when the new entity is formed, union protections will transfer with Dow Jones employees only if half of the new unit’s employees come from union-protected jobs. Currently, Dow Jones employees will make up only 40% of the new company’s workforce, with the rest coming from other News Corp. businesses such as HarperCollins, Move Inc., and others.

At stake are your health-care benefit protections, your severance benefits, your seniority rights, and the protections you have against swift firings without due process. (While NewsTech healthcare benefits will match existing Dow Jones benefits for now, NewsTech employees won’t have contractual protections against extreme premium increases. NewsTech employees will also lose their contractual rights to severance.) If we organize, we can stop the worst from happening, but we need your help. Please contact us at union@iape1096.org so we can work together to ensure you continue to have representation.       

IWD 2018

Mar. 8, 2018 -- In what has become an International Women's Daytradition, IAPE is reviving the discussion on the long-standing claim the union has against Dow Jones—a significant gap exists between salaries of IAPE-represented men and women, even when they do the same job and have the same level of experience.

Two years ago, IAPE kick-started the company-wide debate about the gender pay gap at Dow Jones followed by a ground-breaking study that has become the benchmark in our industry.

Today, we are commissioning a follow-up review. Working again with the consulting firm Strength in Numbers, we are looking to determine if there has been any improvement after our initial findings about reporters, the single largest job title here.

We don't want to stop there. As we said last year, we are investing in expanding our analysis to look into pay disparities that could be attributable to race. This has been complicated work for a glaring reason—we have few employees of color in the reporter title. And we are interested in hearing other suggestions about how we can further study the pay dynamics at Dow Jones.

Dow Jones has said no disparities exist because of race or gender | 

No Opt-Out

Mar. 16, 2018 -- Earlier this week, the IAPE Board of Directors agreed we should all continue to focus on contributing our immense value to the Dow Jones brand and bottom line without the added distraction of contract negotiations. As such, we informed the company that we have decided to allow our contract to stand through June 30, 2019. Our message was delivered in response to a similar note from Dow Jones officials, stating that the company would not be exercising its right to terminate the contract early. All terms and conditions of our contract will remain in full effect for the next fifteen-and- | More

Jenny Roth

Mar. 13, 2018 -- Jenny, bringer of brownies and joy to Dow Jones since 2001, passed away Monday after a more than five-year battle with cancer. Our deepest sympathies to the Roth and Park families. We'll miss you, Jenny. Read note from Gerry Baker to WSJ staff below. I'm very sorry to relate that Jenny (Park) Roth, our friend and colleague on the WSJ Real-Time Desk, died Monday morning at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center after battling breast cancer. She left us peacefully, surrounded by family and friends. Jenny, who was 43 years old, lived in Oradell, N.J., with her family: husband, Erik, |

IAPE @ Work

Dec. 29, 2017 -- IAPE's newly elected leadership took its first steps toward enacting a bold vision earlier this month. In one of its first actions at its biannual meeting, board members voted to establish a committee to lead IAPE's efforts of rooting out discrimination of any kind at Dow Jones. Led by directors Louise Radnofsky and Lillian Rizzo, the Human Rights/Diversity committee will continue work on the pay equity study. Dozens of employees have already had their salaries adjusted thanks to this groundbreaking analysis, but IAPE contends that inequities with compensation persist. |

Grievance Filed

Dec. 15, 2017 -- Following up on our email from Nov. 20 on the member-flagged issue of potential violations of our health-care premium cap protections, IAPE has filed a grievance against Dow Jones as we take defending our contract very seriously. According to Article XII, Section A.3 of our agreement, with the company, Dow Jones is prohibited from raising premiums from 2017 to 2018 by more than 0.5% of your annual salary. For example, if your annual salary is $85,000, the most the company can increase your premiums in a year is $425 (Thanks to a freeze negotiated by our bargaining committee last year, |