Providence Newspaper Guild reaches tentative agreement

PROVIDENCE – The Providence Newspaper Guild, the Providence Journal’s largest union, said it has reached a tentative agreement involving a pay freeze and changes to the cost of its health insurance plan.

The proposed three-year contract affects the 250 union members of the Providence Journal.

“We will lose some ground economically under the proposed agreement, and if this were five years ago, we wouldn’t even consider it,” the union said in its “Bargaining Bulletin #12,” published on Jan. 31.

“But when you look at the devastating job losses in the newspaper business nationally and the downward trend in salaries and benefits in New England contracts over the past three years, we feel this is a deal we can live with,” it said.

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Concerning salaries, the guild members will have a pay freeze until Belo’s other employees receive a 2.5 percent pay increase, because the “rest of Belo” took at least a 2.5 percent pay cut in 2009.

“When that happens, we will get any raises the rest of Belo gets,” it said. In the first year, however, if guild members miss out on a pay raise, in return each will get three paid days off.

The major changes apply to the health insurance plan. Coverage will remain the same, except for in-vitro fertilization, but the amount members pay will increase. For example, the agreement calls for guild members to pay 10 percent of the bills for many services and increases fixed-amount copays for office visits.

The new plan will take effect on April 1. Rates in 2012 will be unchanged from 2011, while some copays, deductibles and maximums will increase in 2013, it said. For more of the terms of the agreement, click here.

“A pay freeze will hurt as the cost of living increases, but other locals in New England have taken pay cuts of 7, 10 and 23 percent over the past three years. In the context of these hard times, our wage agreement (with the three paid days off) is a victory,” the guild concluded.

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