February 23, 2022
The News Media Guild’s bargaining team met with The Associated Press on Thursday to discuss the Editorial Unit Contract.
The primary focus of today’s meeting was to discuss the draft social media policy, holidays and vacation proposals.
The company presented its counter social media policy that included several wins for the guild. This includes the company agreeing to make a commitment to ensuring the safety of AP employees; applying the policy to both contractors and freelancers; and no longer requiring employees to disclose they work on social media platforms for the company while handling sensitive assignments. However, the guild still has some concerns about the resources outlined in the draft and requested more information. The company agreed to discuss more.
On vacations, the company said it was not willing to provide three weeks of vacation to new hires and it would not budge on moving up when employees can qualify for five weeks of vacation and rejected the addition of a sixth week of vacation. The company said it was only willing to provide 10 days of vacation for new hires, arguing it was a big jump from what new employees currently receive. The guild asked the company for information on the vacation entitlement of guild-covered staff hired since Jan. 1, 2019, and the company said it was working on that request.
On holidays, the company said it heard the guild’s concerns about changing compensation for holiday pay to paid only and removing the option of getting CTO time, but stated that remains its position. This remains an ongoing issue. The company did say that it would drop its proposal that employees must schedule all vacation time by July 1 and maintain the Aug. 1 date.
Finally, the company was provided the guild’s proposal for temporary employees, but no major discussions were made.
The guild told the AP it would accept the latest proposal on Outside Work, which requires the company to acknowledge a request within 3 days and either render a decision or request additional time within 10 days from the employee’s request.
The guild was represented by Vin Cherwoo, a sports writer from New York; John Braunreiter, a customer support specialist from Milwaukee; Kim Kruesi, a newsperson from Nashville, Tenn.; Bobby Calvan, a newsperson from New York; and administrator Kevin Keane. Guild members Mike Warren, Ali Swenson, Sophia Tulp and Angelo Fichero attended for the social media policy discussions.