Consumer Reports offers buyout to workers

Consumer Reports CEO Marta Tellado sent out the following announcement to the staff:

Dear Colleagues,

I am pleased to report that we have reached a tentative agreement with the Guild on a contract extension. The new agreement, if ratified by the Guild membership, extends the contract through June 30, 2017, and provides employees with competitive wage increases. The Guild members will be meeting to ratify the terms of their contract extension on Thursday.

During our conversations with the Guild, we also reached another important decision, one that recognizes the transformation underway at Consumer Reports. Over the last year, I’ve communicated about our ongoing efforts to transform CR in order to expand our reach, strengthen our offerings, and remain well positioned to fight for and serve alongside consumers in the future. We understand that with our strategic direction comes necessary change; of course, we also know that change is never easy.

In order to provide many of our long-serving employees with the opportunity to make a meaningful choice about their future, the Guild approached us—and we made the decision together—to create a voluntary separation program (VSP). The VSP gives eligible employees the chance to choose to remain on the transformational journey underway at CR or to pursue other opportunities.

The benefits provided under the VSP—the most generous ever offered by CR, and one that we will not likely be able to replicate in the future—will be available as a voluntary option to many employees, both Guild members and employees not represented by the Guild, who have been with the organization 10 or more years. I want to be clear from the outset that this offering was not financially motivated, and there is no target number of acceptances we have set. The sole purpose of this VSP is to provide both NewsGuild and Management/Exempt employees who have dedicated themselves to CR for many years—a group whose perspectives, experience, and wisdom we value tremendously—with the ability to make meaningful choices about their path forward at a time of profound change.

We appreciate your patience between now and Monday, April 4th, when all eligible employees will receive a package of materials from HR with the details of the VSP.

The Leadership Team and I are meeting with all of our managers this morning to brief them so that they will be able to answer questions. Next week, the HR Generalists and the Benefits team will be available for appointments and open office hours to provide information and address questions to help staff as they consider the VSP offer.

At Consumer Reports, we have always been committed to the principle of meaningful choice, and we believe that this voluntary separation program extends that principle to our loyal and hardworking employees. Thank you for your continued dedication to our organization.

The union will vote on the contract extension and the buyout offer on Thursday.