The ONG Citizen Unit Bargaining committee is now receiving a number of inquiries concerning the proposed change to the E-3 / E-4 classifications in the contract.
This change was proposed as a housekeeping change to reflect logical numbering under
the editorial department jobs, E-1 through E-8. The copy editor job has always been a
“higher classification” job than a reporter job, but a change to the grid back in 1997
moved reporters up to E-3 with the Queens Park and Parliamentary reporters.
During the 1997 round of contract bargaining, the copy editor job was the E-4 group,
and the reporter job was in the E-5 group (along with photographers, librarians etc).
There was no percentage increase in the first year of the contract, with everyone
receiving a lump sump payment on ratification, but the reporters were given an extra
$22/week pay increase as part of negotiations and were moved from the E-5 group up
to E-3 with the parliamentary reporters. There was no change to the copy editors who
remained as E-4, but they were still paid at a higher weekly pay rate than the reporters,
and consequently still considered as a higher classification than reporter.
In 2011, the photographers addressed the issue about not being on par with the
reporters. This was reviewed by the union and the company through the Pay Equity
process. The result was that the photographers received pay parity with the reporters.
It was also agreed to move photographers from the E-5 group to the E-3 group and
update the contract at the next round of negotiations, namely 2013.
When the threat of layoffs arose in the summer of 2012, the issue of bumping brought
the numbering anomaly in the contract to the forefront again and many discussions with
the employer took place on this subject. The Guild obtained a legal opinion to clarify –
we asked our labour lawyers specifically about the classifications of reporters and copy
editors in the contract. E-3 is the reporter group, and E-4 is the copy editor group, but
the copy editors have a higher weekly salary . The legal opinion was that the copy
editors are the higher classification. They believe that the lower-paid classifications in
the contract provisions refer to the lower-paid classification, and that the numbering of
the classifications would not govern. That would mean that in the event of layoff, a copy
editor could bump a reporter with lower seniority.
The Guild proposed again for this round of negotiations to switch the E-3 and E-4 groups
to help clear up the issue. The employer also proposed classification and bumping rights
language that states a lower classification is defined as a classification in which the
maximum pay rate listed under Article 6 is lower. As a result both parties agreed that
the Article 6, Editorial grid, should be aligned to reflect the proper listing sequence of
the jobs.
If you have any questions, please contact a member of the Guild executive committee.
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Rob Bostelaar, Debbie Cole, Lois Kirkup, Jeff Parks, ONG Bargaining Committee
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