Contract Expired, Posties Return to Picketline

Washington Post workers return to the picketline on Tuesday at 12:30p. “The contract has now expired, and the company has notified the Guild that it will terminate the contract, as it has in previous years when we have failed to reach an agreement prior to expiration,” Newspaper Guild Local 32035 reported on November 7... 

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While the Guild’s bargaining team “continues to seek a fair contract,” Local 32035 says “This is obviously a challenge given that management came into negotiations with unreasonable demands for take-backs from employees, most notably in the form of a freezing of the traditional pension benefit that most Guild-covered employees have counted on as part of their compensation.” Another take-back is a drastic cut in severance pay and the Guild is also concerned with a Post proposal to offer new employees no pension whatsoever, “a clear bidding-down of the value of being a Washington Post employee.” The terms of the Guild’s contract, including the traditional pension benefit, remain in place as bargaining continues.