Composing: Tentative agreement

Composing-unit bargainers met with company officials Thursday evening to wrap up final proposals and come to a tentative agreement on a contract. They hope to be able to hold ratification meetings and voting on the same dates as the main unit (Sept. 13 and 14).

The contract wrapped up with tentative agreements on:

• Changes to the life and disability plan language
• The company's proposal on picket-line language

We withdrew outstanding proposals on:

• Increasing contributions to the pension fund
• 90-day notice of a sale or closure
• Successorship
• Wage increases
• Restoring Sandra Raynor (formerly Tollefson) to journey-level status

Chapel chair Rena Mefford said of the Raynor proposal: "I’d like to make a note that this was the last item to come off. There was a lot of objection to this, and this was very important to our group."

I'd like to thank Rena and the other Guild bargainers who worked so hard on the Composing-unit contract: Dan Beaumont, Gene Balk, Darryl Sclater and Guild AO Liz Brown. Thanks also to the main-unit team for participating in the opening session of Composing talks.

(Yoko)