-Caveat Lector-
---------- Forwarded message ----------
September 20, 1999
Dow Jones Says No to Journal Overtime
By FELICITY BARRINGER, NY Times
Week by week, the labor dispute at Dow Jones & Co. has been festering,
prompting many journalists in the newsroom of The Wall Street Journal to
take the unusual action of putting in for overtime. Late Friday, Peter
Skinner, the general counsel of Dow Jones, sent an e-mail message to
employees saying that according to recent court rulings reporters were
not entitled to overtime pay.
"Our reporters are not eligible for overtime," Skinner wrote, "because,
in the words of the federal regulations, their 'primary duty consists of
work requiring invention, imagination, or talent in a recognized field of
artistic endeavor,' such as 'top-flight writers of analytical and
interpretive articles."'
But Journal reporters say that their contract -- which expired on Aug. 31
-- specifies a 35-hour work week and that its language seems to
acknowledge the relevance of overtime to their jobs. "Overtime shall be
worked only when authorized by a supervisor or when reasonably required
to complete work assigned by a supervisor," reads the contract, portions
of which were provided to The New York Times by a Journal reporter.
Skinner's memo, which arrived in e-mailboxes as reporters were leaving
for the weekend, left some reporters fuming. Robert Langreth, who covers
pharmaceuticals and who put in for more than 10 hours of overtime last
week, said that both the message and its impersonal electronic delivery
meant "management is saying, 'We don't care about you."'
Even before the e-mail, he said, reporters were "furious" over a proposed
cutback in their pensions. "If this whole thing hadn't happened, I would
not be a union board member now."
After the contract expired, Journal reporters, along with technical
workers who also belong to the union, the Independent Association of
Publishers' Employees, held a lunchtime picketing session -- with the
incongruous scene of some of the marching reporters wearing business
attire, since their work typically involves interviewing industry
executives.
Richard J. Tofel, a Dow Jones spokesman, said he saw last week's signs of
rising employee ire as simply the storm before the calm. "We're in the
later stages of a labor negotiation," he said on Friday. "This is always
true in the later stages of a labor negotiation."
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