Bloomberg Law reporter Fatima Hussein sent the following email to Guild members who work at Bloomberg Industry Group:
Dear Colleagues,
In great news for workers, today the Guild learned that its arbitration request over several titles that have been excluded from Guild-eligible membership is moving forward.
An arbitrator decided that our complaint that roughly 27 Bloomberg Industry Group employees are being excluded from Guild protections and are instead labeled salaried workers ins in fact timely, and we can proceed with our case against the company.
Excluding titles is how employers undermine the strength of the union. We have seen in other work places how management seeks to classify positions that would otherwise be Guild-covered to be exempt. This means those employees lose their strong Guild-negotiated benefits such as protection from unfair discipline, pay increases, and severance rights.
While we celebrate this development and will diligently prepare for arbitration, we hope the company will take into account then tens of thousands it spends on this grievance, which could instead be used on worker pay, hiring more quality employees and most importantly, honoring our collective bargaining agreement.
On our end, this victory was not free We were only able to afford to fight for you because of union dues. Thank you to everyone who is a dues paying member. If you’re not, please consider signing up. The job we save may be yours.
The union has several outstanding arbitration requests with the company, including grievances over the heinous way copy editors were laid off, the manner in which sick leave was taken from pension-eligible workers who lost hundreds of hours during the Covid-19 pandemic, and others.
In each of these instances, the company has stated our grievances were not timely and/or arbitrable. Hopefully this decision will show the company that it cannot merely dismiss the valid grievances of workers, as an arbitrator of justice will recognize our claims.
