Reuters accused of imposing illegal pay cuts by union

Posted by Helena Humphrey on February 8, 2010 at 11:03 AM

The Newspaper Guild of New York has accused Thompson Reuters of imposing illegal pay cuts, the New York Times reports. The news comes just two months after the agency made clear its plans to cut some 240 jobs in its legal divisions across North America.

According to a complaint filed by the union on Friday, the news service is wrongly cutting the pay of some 420 employees by an average of 10 percent through various measures, including no longer contributing to staff retirement plans, health care, out of pocket expenses, as well as increasing the number of hours staff members must work in order to receive overtime. Automatic annual pay increases will also no longer be guaranteed.

Employees angry at the changes will not be able to vent their frustrations through social media network Twitter, as the news service is restricting staff from posting anything "that would damage the reputation of Reuters News or Thomson Reuters" on their personal accounts.

The sticking point lies in the fact that Thomson Reuters improperly declared an impasse on the negations in January, therefore making the changes illegal.

Despite the fact that Reuters has not responded directly to the accusations levelled at them by the union, the company states that its pay system is fair and will provide "a guaranteed increase of 0.5 percent and a merit-based pay system to reward strong performance," which its declares will help safeguard the company's future through these difficult economic period.

Yet The Newspaper Guild points out that, unlike the newspaper industry, Reuters has not suffered the same financial hardships as print publications, as it does not rely on advertising.

President of the New York Guild, Bill O'Meara, stated: "If a healthy company like Thomson Reuters ... cuts pay, it will cause less healthy news organizations to cut even more, and pretty soon many of the journalists our democracy depends on won't be able to afford to stay in business."

Source: New York Times