CORAL GABLES, Fla. – After a year of negotiations, the News Media Guild and the EFE News Service reached areement on a first contract for U.S. workers at the Madrid-based Spanish news agency. Members ratified the pact unanimously on Dec. 21.
The three-year agreement is retroactive to Jan. 2006 and establishes basic contract protections familiar to AP and UPI members, such as job security and the right to have disputes heard by an impartial abitrator.
The pact spells out pay increases of 3.0 percent the first year, and 2.5 and 2.5 percent in the second and third years. The pact also has a cost-of-living "catch up" feature that kicks in if inflation exceeds the wage increase, up to a cap of 3 percent annually.
For the first time, EFE employees would have a 401(k) plan. Up till now, employees could only rely on Social Security for their retirement. Since many EFE workers are non-citizens, they were are risk of losing Social Security benefits they had paid for through payroll taxes. The pact calls for a 1.5 percent employer contribution starting in 2008. EFE also will switch to the union-run UFW-CWA medical plan, a part of Blue Cross/Blue Shield, improving benefits and reducing employee costs for health care.
"Many members may not realize that benefits of Guild representation simply do not exist in the non-union world," said NMG President Tony Winton, who led the organizing campaign and the negotiations. The contract victory is tinged with sadness, however, because 15 workers accepted severance in lieu of transfer to Bogotá, Colombia. The Guild did negotiate improved terms for the departures.