Contract 2024 – Now You Decide

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IAPE’s board of directors has approved a tentative agreement for a new contract that was hammered out late Friday, June 14, 2024 between Dow Jones representatives and our bargaining committee. Now it's up to our 1,400 members  to approve the deal. We recommend you vote “yes.” 

Hundreds of members joined open bargaining, participated in phone banking, signed the walk-out pledge, attended actions like lunch-ins, lunch-outs and picket sign preparation, as well as changing avatars, backgrounds and wearing their IAPE t-shirts. Your support gave our bargaining team the leverage to win an industry-leading contract. It was the credible threat of a work action that made this deal possible. 

The end result of one year and one day of negotiations is a hard-fought win. Many sections of the contract were revised and new sections added. But, the largest gains were made in compensatory increases. 

  • 2023-2024 Combined - 8%

  • 2023 Retro payment of 4.25%, with a minimum of $4,250

  • Lump sum bonus of 1% of salary, with a minimum of $1,000, paid upon ratification of the contract

  • 2025 - 3.75%

  • 2026 - 3.75%

By the end of this contract, we will have addressed high inflation of past years and guaranteed wage growth in excess of expected inflation.

The company started negotiations seeking to eliminate the cost of living adjustment provision in our contract. We successfully held them back. They also wanted to significantly increase health plan design costs and we were able to keep those minimal. Ensuring our members are earning wages that keep pace with the cost of living while working in the world’s most expensive cities will demand vigilance, and your engagement, in every contract cycle. 

We had to offer concessions and compromises along the way, including a raise in premium costs for members with partners and dependents. We are hoping the ratification bonus will help offset those costs. Additionally, we were unable to get the full AI protections we were proposing. However we did get extra severance for those laid off due to AI, as well as 45 days notice instead of the usual 30. And we established that as AI becomes a bigger part of the business, conversations will remain open between IAPE and DJ.

Overall, we think this represents about the best deal possible without a strike. We have made important strides in a number of areas that will make a real difference for members.  There is more work to be done and IAPE will continue to fight for even better contract wins in the future.

We will be sending information on the ratification vote shortly and hope to get the vote done before the new fiscal year begins on July 1, 2024. Please stay tuned for details for meetings to discuss our new agreement. An outline of our achievements are below. 

Summary of Achievements and Highlights: 

Other compensation highlights:

  • We negotiated an increase to the minimum scales by 5.75% effective July 1, 2024

  • Members whose job classifications are moved to a higher tier or whose jobs migrate to a new title without a significant change in duties will retain their experience credit/scale step in the higher Tier. 

  • IAPE and the company agreed upon multiple job classifications being moved to higher tiers. Affected employees will be migrated to the appropriate scale step according to the Title/Job Migrations procedure. 

  • Shift differential has been increased by 11% (to $155/wk)

  • Stand-By Pay for overtime eligible employees has been increased to $240/week.

  • Stand-By Pay for overtime exempt employees has been increased to $285/week.

  • Vacation sell-back has been increased from $1,250/wk to $1,500/wk (An Employee who is entitled to at least three weeks of vacation and earning less than $1500/wk may sell back one full week of vacation for cash each year.) 

Health Care and Benefits

  • Health Care Plan Design – IAPE held the company to small increases in deductibles, copays and out-of-pocket maximums. (See Exhibit A in the MOA for exact numbers)

Job Security

  • The Company has agreed to fundamentally change the definition of a “Department” in the contract to remove the references to “department heads” and to instead create a list of named departments designated by the Company as distinct functional/operational groups. This will increase the number of employees in a given department, which in turn strengthens seniority protections.

  • The location of an Employee assigned to work out of their residence, or News Employees in a location where there are three or fewer employees in the same title who are assigned to report to a manager or managers located in a bureau different from that in which the Employee is physically located location, (“telecommuters”), shall be the location of the manager who supervises the telecommuter’s work, except for telecommuters whose assignment to cover a specific geographical area requires them to maintain a residence in that area.  In such cases, the Employee’s location for purposes of this Article shall be their residence and the Employee will be notified that their residence is their location for the exercise of seniority. This proposal will strengthen job security protections for employees working remotely.

  • IAPE accepted the company’s proposal to increase the seniority equivalency for employees with more than 3 years of service to 2-year bands. For example, if someone was hired in 2010, their seniority would be considered the same as someone who was hired in 2008. IAPE was able to negotiate an out-of-seniority severance premium of 2 additional weeks for someone that is part of the 2-year band, but has more seniority than the employee who was not laid off. 

  • IAPE negotiated a raise to all retraining allowances by $1,000

Miscellaneous

  • Artificial Intelligence - IAPE secured protections that prohibit the use of voice recordings in connection with AI-generated speech without the specific consent of the employee. 

  • Additionally, layoffs resulting from the introduction of Artificial Intelligence systems or tools shall be subject to: (i) a 45-day notice period; (ii) an extra four weeks of severance pay; and (iii) for any layoffs affecting more than ten employees, the Company shall consult with the union for an additional two weeks before the first day of the 45-day notice period.

  • Removal of photo editors from the list of excluded titles. These employees voted for IAPE representation and are now part of our union.

  • Return to the Office - The Company will continue to provide not less than 30 days’ advance notice to the affected employees and to the union whenever there is a change to the in-office work expectations for any group. The current maximum 3-days-per week in the office rule shall continue to apply to hybrid employees at least through Dec. 31, 2024.

  • IAPE agreed to a change in the notice of disciplinary meetings from 3 hours to 2 hours (except in the instances of exigent or emergency circumstances). IAPE also negotiated that both the union will be included on notices of disciplinary meetings. Additionally, the Company will provide a copy of any disciplinary notice to the union if a union rep attends a meeting. 

  • IAPE also negotiated that discharge notice meetings will be considered as “disciplinary,” at which union represented employees have the right to have a union rep present. 

  • Additional language has been added to the CBA that discrimination and harassment of employees based on gender identification and expression is prohibited.