Composing: Slow and steady progress

Wednesday's talks between Times management and Composing-unit bargainers yielded a few more small steps toward a contract.

We agreed to:

• Language that would allow Composing-unit members to join the company's long-term disability plan, if they choose to do so. (This vote would be separate from contract ratification.)
• Language spelling out the circumstances under which an employee is entitled to overtime.
• A change in the Memorandum of Understanding on Competency to remove an expired onetime retirement-incentive bonus.
• Deletion of the addendum about conversion to a 40-hour work week. (That conversion is complete, and language has been updated throughout the contract to reflect that change.)

In addition, we're moving closer to an agreement on vacation scheduling. Management wants to change the longtime practice of having the chapel chair do initial vacation signups. They want that process to instead be handled by a manager.

We're working on language to accommodate this desire, while ensuring members that nothing else about vacation scheduling would change.

Our vacation-scheduling proposal is conditioned entirely upon the company agreeing to dues checkoff, so that members could pay Guild dues through an automatic deduction from their paychecks.

The company has rejected our current proposals on wages, additional notice in the event of a sale, and a successorship clause. (Those proposals are identical to the ones on the table in the main Guild contract.) We hope to revisit those issues in future talks.

Our next Composing-unit meeting is at 8 a.m. Monday, Aug. 21.