February 29, 2016 

Dues Cap Increase

Biweekly Cap Boosted To $21.61

IAPE members — when you have a chance to look at your Dow Jones pay statement later this week, many of you will notice a small increase in your bi-weekly IAPE dues assessment. Effective with this week's deposit, the capped amount on Union dues has increased from $21.19 to $21.61 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 $3,027.00 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 2015 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: immediately following our 2005 dues referendum, only IAPE members with bi-weekly salaries at or below $2,967.14 paid the full 0.7% of their earnings. The original $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.

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.