Thanksgiving!

The officers, directors and staff of IAPE extend our very best wishes for a safe and happy Thanksgiving holiday! The IAPE office will close early today and staff will be offline tomorrow and Friday.

For IAPE-represented employees in the United States, if you are not scheduled to work tomorrow, please enjoy your holiday. But if you are required to work on Thursday, please keep the following in mind: Article VIII of the collective agreement between IAPE and Dow Jones gives you the option to claim additional pay for that work.

The IAPE/DJ agreement requires Holiday Pay at a rate of time-and-one-half for all regular hours worked on a holiday (double-time for extra hours) plus an additional day off in lieu of the holiday or an additional day’s pay.

The agreement gives IAPE-represented employees the right to choose between the additional pay or an additional day off for all holidays worked after July 3rd in any calendar year. If you are assigned to work on Thanksgiving Day and you prefer to receive extra pay instead of an additional day off, please inform your manager.

You may file for your Holiday Pay through Workday. If you have any questions about pay for working on a holiday or receiving your extra day’s pay or day off (again, your choice), please contact the IAPE office at union@iape1096.org.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Strikesgiving!
While IAPE members are working under a recently-ratified one-year contract at Dow Jones, many of our NewsGuild siblings are in the midst of difficult negotiations with their employers, and some have been forced to withhold their labor to force management to negotiate in good faith.

On Nov. 4, Guild members at Reuters voted in favor of authorizing their bargaining committee to call a strike if their employer continues bargaining in bad faith. Thus far, members continue to work as negotiations continue. Members of the Fort Worth NewsGuild are raising funds in the event they need to take strike action against the Star Telegram. And in Pittsburgh, where Guild members have been on strike since Oct. 18 protesting unfair labor practices committed by management of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, the union has launched its own strike publication, Pittsburgh Union Progress.

On Monday, the IAPE Board of Directors authorized a $1,500 contribution to the Pittsburgh Striker Fund, used exclusively to assist striking Pittsburgh Post-Gazette families with special needs who are facing very difficult financial circumstances. IAPE members may donate to the fund by visiting unionprogress.com/donate, and are encouraged to subscribe to the Union Progress!

Some IAPE members have asked about the nearly two-week old strike at HarperCollins. While the HarperCollins Union is not part of the same international union as IAPE—they are a local union of the United Auto Workers—we still support our corporate colleagues as they fight for a fair contract settlement. If you’re not already following the Harper Union on Twitter, you can find a thread on tips for supporting unionized staff here.