Bargaining Update: Working on a Wage Package

Contract Extended Through October 30

IAPE and Dow Jones contract negotiations continued yesterday in Princeton. The union bargaining team delivered its sixth proposal to the company, highlighting some select issues including a new wage proposal.

IAPE reduced its proposal for a 2023 pay raise, but filled in numbers previously indicated as “TBD” for 2024 and 2025. The union’s new wage proposal: a 12% raise effective July 1, 2023, followed by 8% pay increases on both July 1, 2024 and July 1, 2025.

The company was quick to note the IAPE wage package now totals 28% over three years. IAPE representatives asked whether management would like to discuss Dow Jones’s stellar financial performance in recent years.

Management said they would respond to the union’s proposal during the next bargaining session scheduled for Thursday.

IAPE also offered new proposals on shift differential and standby pay, and responded to company proposals on minimum pay increases and pay scales, coordination of benefits, job security, performance evaluations and return-to-office issues. Discussions about advance notice of disciplinary and investigatory meetings continued toward what may become a tentative agreement.

Dow Jones representatives asked whether management should consider the union’s latest proposal to be representative of all priority issues for IAPE. The union team noted, and Dow Jones agreed, that the company owes IAPE a response to information requests about company health care costs before negotiations over benefits can continue.

IAPE representatives also pointed out that it has requested information about current company “task forces” reviewing artificial intelligence, and said that the company should consider AI matters to be a significant issue to be negotiated. The Dow Jones team reiterated its position, that the company should have complete flexibility to implement advances in AI—without contractual restrictions—wherever it deems new technology to be appropriate.

IAPE disagrees.

Tomorrow, IAPE and Dow Jones reps will meet in a virtual bargaining session, and the contract will continue to be in effect. Company and union representatives agreed at the outset of yesterday’s meeting to extend the collective agreement through Oct. 30. The first, automatic, sixty-day extension of the CBA was scheduled to expire today.

Bargaining Town Halls
All members are encouraged to join one of two IAPE virtual town hall meetings on Monday, Sept. 11. Meeting times are scheduled for 2:00 p.m. and 6:00 p.m. EDT. See your email for calendar invitations (and let us know if you have not received an invite). Members of the IAPE Bargaining Committee will be present to provide updates from the contract table.

If you have contract questions or comments between now and Sept. 11, please send those along to union@iape1096.org.

Join us for Labor Day Activities
Also watch your email for upcoming notices about Labor Day activities. IAPE is inviting members in the New York and New Jersey area to join union officers, directors, staff and Guild siblings from other area unions in walking in the New York City Labor Day Parade, scheduled for the Saturday after Labor Day, Sept. 9, at 10:00 a.m. EDT. Details about a meet-up location for IAPE members will be available soon!