Bargaining bulletin: Agreement reached on health and safety committee

Today we responded to the company with our own time off proposal calling for rollover sick days, personal days, and family leave.

In other words, all the things the company left out of its proposal to us yesterday. Tribune agreed to split our time off into separate buckets of vacation and sick days, but their offer comes with a price: one less day off. The company's proposal also does not allow employees to carry time off over into the next year.

Despite our efforts to make progress on time off and family leave, a company representative said we are "still very far apart on this conceptually."

The company did agree to a joint committee made up of employees and managers that would meet to discuss the health and safety of workers. They continue to resist providing us with ergonomic workstations or with money to do so. They also resisted our effort to require notice of legally mandated safety testing.

The Company refused to discuss the potential inclusion of the new Tribune Content Agency bargaining unit in our joint bargaining process, somehow arguing that it didn't concern us.

In Solidarity,
The Joint Bargaining Committee