Save Our Trade

This is an open letter to the people at the Times, pro union, anti union, managers and anyone who cares to read it.

This is an actual account of something that recently happened at Newsday.
The company notified the union that our plate room was converting to CTP ( computer to plate) and the department was facing the loss of 11 jobs due to the new technology.
The union was concerned because they are all long term employees and our friends.
We understood that in this world things like this happen and its just a fact of life.
The people being downsized were going to receive severance packages and scheduled to be leaving in transition over a period over a few months.
We approached several managers at Newsday and asked if it was possible to allow people from other departments who were willing and wanted to leave instead could with the same severance package.Then we would replace them with people who were qualified and wanted to stay.
The primary concerns were that there would be no disruption of the operation and there would be no additional cost. Fair enough.
We agreed that Newsday would determine who was most qualified to replace the people who were leaving.
The union did the legwork before hand to make sure we had qualified people to apply for those positions.
The company made the effort to interview applicants and was gracious enough to be patient on what amounted to about a three week period.
In essence we had a shift of personnel involving about 20 people.
The end result was that anyone who wanted to remain could and the people who wanted to leave did. Everyone won.
I am not saying we will be inviting each other to barbeques this summer but rather that you can work together for a good cause when it really counts.

Lou

As usual all comments are welcome, even from the guy who keeps calling me Soprano.