US union in demarcation dispute over role of Reuters editors

It has filed a grievance and asked an arbitrator to rule on the practice, which it said was a violation of the current contract.

“In an abuse of the Guild-Reuters contract and a blatant quest to squeeze more work out of non-Guild Editorial employees, upper management has expanded the job roles of supervisors to include reporting, and lots of it,” the union said.

Last June, management identified 56 editors-in-charge that it believed were eligible under the union’s contract to perform Guild-represented work - about twice the number that existed when the current contract was ratified in July 2011. The Guild said it amounted to about 15 per cent of the entire US Guild population at Reuters and 21 per cent of all reporters, editors and photographers.

“To put it into real world terms, one in five of our newsroom colleagues isn't getting overtime and would be at risk in a layoff because there is one boss for every five workers, and most of them are doing our work. Now that even Editor-in-Chief Steve Adler is acting as a reporter, Reuters journalists more and more are finding themselves competing with their own bosses. It’s a rigged contest that Guild-covered reporters can’t win.”

The union said that, in a trend that had grown with the number of editors-in-charge, management editors were giving high priority to their own copy and pushing their reporters’ stories down the chain. They were also claiming more stories as their own.

“With one boss per five workers, and most of them doing reporting, editors are competing with subordinates for stories and sources. Guess who wins…

“The Guild is deeply concerned about the creep of EICs and senior editors into Guild-covered work, and the detrimental effect it has on our file. That's why we've proposed limiting the number of EICs who may do our work. This is an issue that affects all Guild members. Everything in our contract, from pay and benefits to employment security, was bargained because the Guild has jurisdiction over certain work and the legal right to represent those who perform it. The more this work - reporting, editing and photo shooting - is done by non-Guild employees, the less our effectiveness in bargaining for those who perform it.” 

Global commodities editor Jonathan Leff had defended the practice, saying editors should lead from the front, and proclaimed that editors-in-charge and senior editors were often the most exceptional journalists on those beats, the Guild said.

It said it had found that senior managers above the level of editors-in-charge, including Adler, were doing Guild-covered work, many of them on a routine basis.

“It’s a violation of our contract. We have filed a grievance and asked an arbitrator to rule on it.” ■