February 19, 2015 

IAPE Dues Cap Increase

IAPE members — when you have a chance to look at your Dow Jones pay statement today, many of you will notice a small increase in your bi-weekly IAPE dues assessment. Effective this pay period, the capped amount on Union dues has increased from $20.77 to $21.19 per pay period.

The percentage rate for IAPE dues — 0.7% of base pay (and commissions, where applicable) — has not changed. The only members immediately affected by this increase are those with gross, bi-weekly salaries of $2,967.14 or higher.

On November 18, 2005, IAPE members approved the following in a membership referendum:

Dues shall be assessed at a rate of 0.007 (or 0.7%, collected on base pay plus commissions only) with a cap of $20.77 per pay period, effective on the first of the month, 60 days after ratification.

Thereafter, the individual cap shall be increased annually by no more than the percentage amount of the average compensatory increase in all contracts between IAPE and each employer.

The 2014 compensatory increase for each IAPE collective agreement with Dow Jones & Company was 2%, requiring a 2% increase to the dues cap.

Boosting the cap on Union dues is a matter of equity: IAPE members with bi-weekly salaries at or below $2,967.14 have been paying the full 0.7% of their earnings since the current dues level was set in 2005. The former $20.77 cap represented a smaller percentage of salary — in many cases significantly smaller — for our higher-paid members.

The cap on IAPE dues originated at a time when IAPE contracts also contained a cap on annual pay increases. Until 2007, the highest-paid 6% of employees represented by the Union only received 85% of the annual IAPE-negotiated pay increase. We were successful in eliminating that clause beginning in 2008.

Still, the previous IAPE administration chose to ignore the wishes of IAPE members and maintained the existing $20.77 level. The current Board of Directors of your Union, during its regular meeting on December 6, 2014, decided to finally enforce the measure passed almost a decade ago.

We will continue to increase the cap on an annual basis — subject to the terms of the language above — until such time as IAPE members decide that a cap on dues payments should no longer exist.

To clarify: the increase effective this pay period does not alter the IAPE dues rate in any way. IAPE members will still be charged 0.7% of earnings — that rate may only be adjusted by membership referendum.