We’d like to clarify something we said in yesterday’s Bulletin. We noted that the Post has listed, by age and job title, every position that is eligible or ineligible for the buyout. And this is true. But the Post has advised us that this eligibility list is only a function of hiring date, employment status — full-time v. part-time — and whether a person is on leave. That’s because it turns out that those who are on leave are also exempted, which is something that was pointed out to us after we put out the Bulletin.

So, in other words, there is a list that spells out, for those departments and units that are targeted for buyouts, which employees are eligible and which are not and lists them by age and job title. For example, the Post has exempted six employees on the Local Politics Government team and eight in the National Economics and Business team and listed their exact ages and job titles. But the Post has told us this is because those folks are either part-time, recent hires or on leave. The buyout offer is only for full-time staff hired before Jan. 1, 2010 in selected departments who are “actively working,” according to the Post documents.

We apologize for any confusion. We will try to keep you updated as we learn more.

Please remember we would also like to hear from you if you would like to join the bargaining committee. We will do everything in our power to secure the best terms for everyone.

I would also like to remind you all — and especially those of you are covered by the Guild contract but do not pay your dues — that one of the main reasons the Post is offering buyouts and is not just tapping people on the shoulder and telling them to go, is because you have a union and a contract. In the past couple years, I have probably heard all the reasons why people do not do the right thing and sign up–(”Hey, I’m an Ivy League grad, a star, and my editor loves me–what me worry?”, “I can’t afford it,” “I have philosophical differences with organized labor,” “My generation doesn’t do unions,” etc.) — but that’s all just brave talk. If you’re not exempt, you do enjoy protections that you would not have if the Post, like any company, did not have to deal with an organized workforce. This includes news aides, columnists, editorial writers, video journalists and reporters of all kinds — including some who in their work seem highly sympathetic about American labor’s struggles but who are curiously uninterested in their own union–and commercial employees too. We are very grateful for those of you who already understand this. We’re only as strong as all of you.

Cheers,

Freddy

Those eligible to apply will receive an election form and will have 45 days to weigh the Post’s offer. The Guild will make every effort to improve the terms of the buyout over the next 10 business days, as required by the Guild contract.

Certain departments, departmental units, and positions have been exempt from the buyouts, including Foreign, Sports columnists, Style columnists, Outlook, National enterprise and politics teams, and others. Part-timers and recent hires are also exempt.

In those departments and units that are targeted for buyouts, the Post has already identified, by age and job title, which employees are eligible and which are not, according to documents given to the Guild. For example, the Post has exempted six employees on the Local Politics Government team and listed their exact ages and job titles.

The initial proposal is an offer of 2.5 weeks of pay for every year of Post service and some health care coverage. Unlike previous buyout offers, the Post is not offering additional retirement benefits as an incentive to take the buyout. In other words, the Post will not credit people with extra years of service that would increase a person’s pension benefits.

Here are the basic terms of the Post’s Separation Incentive Program (SIP):

- The initial proposal offers 2.5 weeks of pay per year of Post service.

- Three months of Post-paid continued health benefits (COBRA) for those employees with less than 10 years of Post service; six months of such health benefits for those with 10 or more years of service.

Here’s a breakdown of 33 positions targeted by the Post’s offer:

- Up to three employees from News Operations, Research and News IT

- Up to three employees from Style and Features

- Up to three employees from Investigative

- Up to three employees from Universal Desk and News Interactivity

- Up to two employees from Sports

- Up to seven employees from News Presentation and News Video

- Up to nine employees from Local, AKA Metro

- Up to three employees from National’s Economy and Business, and National, Health, Science and Environment teams

The Post has the right to allow more eligible employees to participate, if necessary. Under the company’s initial proposal, The Post also has reserved the right to reject an eligible employee’s offer to accept a buyout for operational or coverage reasons. The following are some departments, units and job titles that are exempt:

- Employees hired on or after Jan. 1, 2010

- All part-time Newsroom employees

- National Politics and Government teams

- National Enterprise – all positions

- National Security – all positions

- Foreign – all positions

- Outlook – all positions

- News Presentation – Artists/Art Director (Graphics), Cartographer Artist, Designer, Graphics Editor

- Style – Critics/Columnists

- Sports – Columnists

- Capital Business – all positions

- News Columnists – Columnist

- Weekend – all positions

Darlene Meyer (middle) at Guild event at the Post Pub. Rick Ehrmann is far right

This eulogy was delivered by Guild organizer Rick Ehrmann at a memorial for Guild leader Darlene Meyer on January 27.

We are here today to celebrate the life of Darlene Meyer and to mark her passing. She was found in her home last Friday, January 20. She loved her family, her job at the Post, and her work as the Guild unit leader for the commercial side of the Post and as the Vice President of the Washington-Baltimore Newspaper Guild.

Darlene came to work as a sales rep at the Post in 1997. She joined the Guild in 1998 and became Chief Steward for Commercial employees in 1999. In 2000, she became Commercial Co-Chair of the Post Guild unit. She also became an officer of the local union, the Washington-Baltimore Newspaper Guild, in 2000, rising to Vice President in 2002.

Newspaper Guild National Representative Bruce Nelson, who is recovering from a serious illness, and is unable to be here today, said “She was a tough and tireless advocate for all Post workers, particularly those in commercial departments who might lack the status and stature of more prominent newsroom employees. Believe me, they were never without a voice when Darlene was around! She could silence a room with her indignation over managerial mistreatment. I will miss the power of that passion. I will also miss her quiet laughter, more of a chuckle than a howl – sometimes accompanied with a sharp twinkle in her eye – when we’d encounter those frequent moments of utter absurdity at the bargaining table.”

As Guild Staff Rep for the Post, I had the pleasure…. and pain of working closely with Darlene since 1998. I was never rattled by having to deal with high flying newsroom Guild leaders like Peter Perl, Rick Weiss, Robert Pierre, and Freddy Kunkle, but Darlene sometimes intimidated me. Years ago, she complained that I spent too much time consulting with newsroom leaders, and not enough with commercial. From then on, until mid-December, not a week went by, even when there was little to discuss, that I didn’t meet with Darlene.

Every Guild Newsroom leader also learned, sometimes the hard way, that Darlene, and through her, all commercial workers, could not be trifled with or patronized. Rick Weiss, a terrific Guild News Co-Chair, and a wonderful writer, once made the mistake of publishing a Guild Bulletin, without first submitting a draft to Darlene for her edits. After the ensuing storm, all subsequent Guild Bulletins included Darlene’s edits. I remember Rick telling me, with a big grin, “Darlene’s a good writer, I like her version better than mine.”

Darlene served on every Post Guild Bargaining Committee since 2002. Her signature appears on the 2002, 2005, 2009, and 2011 Post Guild collective bargaining agreements. She played a major role in negotiating the landmark agreement that resulted in the integration of former WPNI employees into the Post Guild bargaining unit.

In between the contract campaigns, Darlene helped countless individual members resolve their issues, ranging from misunderstandings to grievances and buyouts, meeting with supervisors, managers, and Post labor executives Allan Hounshell, Trish Dunn, and Jay Kennedy.

Thank you, Darlene, for all your good work. We will never forget you. You will be sorely missed.

Relatives of Washington Post Guild leader Darlene Meyer, who passed away this month, have made contact with the Newspaper Guild after seeing a story on Darlene that was  posted on  the Post Guild website.

As a result, the family is traveling from Houston to D.C. to attend a memorial service on Friday, Jan. 27, which will be hosted by the Newspaper Guild and the Washington Post.

The service will be Friday from 3pm-5pm in Meeting Room #4 off the lobby of the Washington Post.

Darlene Meyer (middle) at Guild event at the Post Pub

In what was described as a deep and tragic loss for the Newspaper Guild and the entire labor movement, Washington-Baltimore Newspaper Guild vice president Darlene Meyer has died.

“It is with deep regret that I must advise that Darlene Meyer, our friend, colleague, sister,and tireless union activist, has passed away,” said Sheila Lindsay, Washington-Baltimore Newspaper Guild president.She was found in her home on Jan. 20.

Meyer, a Washington Post commercial-side employee, had served as WBNG’s vice president since 2003. She had been on sick leave for several weeks, and her last contact with the Post was on Jan. 9.

Meyer joined the Guild in the summer of 1998, and was an activist almost from Day One. She became chief shop steward for the non-editorial Guild-covered employees in early 1999, and was elected Commercial co-chairperson of the Post unit less than a year later. Also in early 2000, she was tapped to serve as a Post representative to the WBNG Executive Council.

In late 2000, she was elected as WBNG secretary, one of the four top-officer positions in the local. Two years later she ran unopposed for vice president. She was successively elected to four two-year terms in the local’s No. 2 position.

“She was a tough and tireless advocate for all Post workers, particularly those in commercial departments who might lack the status and stature of more prominent newsroom employees, “said Bruce Nelson, TNG-CWA Representative. “Believe me, they were never without a voice when Darlene was around! She could silence a room with her indignation over managerial mistreatment. ”

“I will miss the power of that passion,” Nelson said.”I will also miss her quiet laughter, more of a chuckle than a howl — sometimes accompanied with a sharp twinkle in her eye — when we’d encounter those frequent moments of utter absurdity at the bargaining table.”

“Her death is a deep and tragic loss for WBNG, TNG, CWA, and the labor movement,” WBNG President Lindsay said in an e-mail that efforts were being made to contact Meyer’s relatives, and that further information would be made available as soon as possible.

This article appeared in the Washington-Baltimore Newspaper Guild website.

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Friends,

As some of you may have already heard or suspected after several cake-less departures this year, the Washington Post has pushed out – or is trying to push out – at least thirteen people through layoffs, coerced buyouts or outright dismissal on dubious charges.

What’s more troubling is that more than half of those employees are African-Americans or Latinos.

The script goes like this: an employee is summoned to a meeting where she hears that “the bar has been raised.” She is told her work does not meet this supposed new standard. She is handed an envelope with a buyout offer and given a deadline to surrender her job or face disciplinary action because of her allegedly poor performance. She is reminded that disciplinary action progresses from warnings to suspensions and termination.

Never mind that the people targeted so far have included veteran journalists with years of distinguished service. Or that talk of a “raised bar” comes as the Post relies more than ever on interns, bloggers, freelancers, readers or comically inexperienced content creators to fill pages. Or that some allegations of poor performance – as documented by the new, pseudoscientific evaluation system and its across-the-board top score of “3” – have included highly subjective and weaselly criticisms such as inserting too many pop culture references in stories. (We are not making this up.)

Other reasons worthy of disciplinary action? Not having enough sources. Not writing more “impact” stories. Not landing on A1 often enough. One staff writer was given a 30-day production quota as follows: at least one deeply textured A1 story, at least one news feature, profile or takeout worthy of the Metro front or A1, at least three dailies a week and at least three blog posts per week. No mention of a Twitter quota. Yet.

The reason for all this is, of course, money. The Washington Post lost $6.2 million in the third quarter of 2011. Newspaper circulation continues to skid by roughly 5 percent a year. Advertising revenues dropped 20 percent in print and 13 percent online.

We know it’s tough. But members of the Guild think that the Post’s direction is not only unfair, it’s unwise. That’s why we are calling on the Post to create a committee to address its approach to reducing staff.

But we are also calling on you. The time for fashionable apathy is past. The Guild needs you to become a dues-paying member and to become active. The Guild has stood by every member who has fought for his or her job or chosen to negotiate a buyout–-and, remember, the leverage for those negotiations is supplied by nothing less than the union contract that covers you and nearly half the employees in this company.

Find out today how to do your fair share for yourself and your fellow workers:

• Darlene Meyer, co-chair, Advertising, 334-7007

• Freddy Kunkle, co-chair, News, 202-302-3688

• Mike Gronowski, Advertising, 334-7087

• Nikita Stewart, News, 334-6988

• Stephen Richardson, Advertising, 334-7730

• Amy Quinto, Ad Ops, 334-4160

• James Crudup, Circ Delivery

• James Ward Circ Delivery

• Whitney Shefte, News, 704-467-4789

• Del Wilber, News, 202.302.7686

Hurting financially but wary of acting precipitously, the Washington Post has planted a strategic stake in the ground when it comes to paywalls: Let the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times, with their national distributions and elite readerships, charge their online customers at the door. We’re going to stay free.

“For us, we believe at the moment it doesn’t make sense,” Post Publisher Katharine Weymouth told POLITICO. “We are making a bet for the long term. We want to be around as the Washington Post for a long time and many generations to come, and at the moment, we think that the best way to do that is to have a free website that is open to everybody and attract as many people as we can to spend as much time as they can with our journalism, and assume that that will bring them back for more.”

Not long ago, this was the dominant attitude in newspaper publishing. But after the Times blew past internal benchmarks for signing up digital subscribers this summer and major papers like the Dallas Morning News, Boston Globe and Baltimore Sun announced paywall rollouts this year, the pendulum appears to be swinging the other way.

Even the Los Angeles Times, the Post’s closest competitor in web traffic, told POLITICO it is planning to begin testing digital subscription models in coming months.

To read more click here.

In the midst of a deteriorating advertising climate, The New York Times plans to eliminate up to 20 newsroom positions and seek additional savings in the business units, the company said Thursday.

The reductions, described by the New York Times Company as a rebalancing, were announced to employees on Thursday morning. The company will seek volunteers for buyouts in The Times newsroom, Jill Abramson, the paper’s executive editor, said in a memo to the staff, adding that no newsroom employee would be laid off. She said there would be “fewer than 20” buyouts.

The Times will also seek to cut costs on the business side by eliminating positions that are vacant and by offering a limited number of buyouts, said an executive who insisted on anonymity because the company was not commenting publicly on the details or scale of the reductions.

Analysts are likely to link the cuts to the Times Company’s third-quarter earnings, which will be reported on Oct. 20 and which are expected to be relatively weak. Late last month, the company’s chief executive, Janet Robinson, told analysts, “Economic conditions have been getting more difficult since the second quarter.”

To read more click here.