The Jersey City Independent "

Share/Save

As we reported on Friday, Local 42 of the Newspaper Guild was preparing a counteroffer to Jersey Journal owner Advance Communications for a meeting this week as the paper confronts a possible closure on April 13. Let’s just say the meeting could have gone better for the ink-stained wretches of Journal Square.

As part of concessions it is trying to wring from employees to prevent the paper’s closure, Advance last week asked the union representing editorial employees to have between four and six of its 13 members voluntarily leave the paper. Under the company’s proposal, employees leaving the paper would receive their contractually-obligated severance (anywhere from two to 48 weeks, depending on length of service) and paid health coverage for that same amount of time. The company had also said it wanted to remove the nine-month cap currently placed on an intern’s tenure at the paper.

At this week’s meeting, management “summarily rejected” the union’s proposal (detailed below) and said it would stick with its original offer, according to reporter Ron Leir, who is president of Local 42. (Publisher Kendrick Ross has yet to return our requests for comment on the situation at the Journal.)

The union first attempted to renegotiate its contract, which will expire in June, with a three-year proposal that included a 2.5 percent pay raise each of those years. The proposal also extended the intern tenure cap from nine to 18 months and raised that position’s designated salary. Leir says management “had no interest” in long-term contract talks before the paper’s survival was ensured.

With the contract renegotiation stalled, the Guild addressed the paper’s buyout plan. It proposed that the employees who stepped forward and left the paper should get a “bonus” payment of 1.5 weeks pay for each year of service, or a minimum of at least 12 weeks pay, on top of the contractual severance pay. It also proposed that the paid health care aspect be changed to a flat 18 months of coverage, unless the person received coverage from a new employer. Lastly, the union asked that the severance and “bonus” be paid whether or not the paper stays open, but that the health coverage only be applied if the paper keeps publishing.

Management rejected the offer and asked the editorial staffers to come to a meeting scheduled for next Tuesday with a list of employees who are ready to take the buyout and leave the paper.

Leir says that so far they have four staffers on such a list, though he declines to name names.

After losing their fight for a better deal, it seems like Leir and his colleagues have little choice but to bend to the will of the parent company. They see it as the only way to save their paper.

“Our hope is that the paper will be around after April 13,” he says.

Whether or not these editorial buyouts will even be enough to keep that hope alive remains to be seen.