Union, Thomson Reuters settle US disciplinary disputes

They agreed that verbal warnings given in 2012 to 15 journalists immediately before they received PIPs will expire on their anniversaries this year if no further discipline is issued to them during the intervening period. Once expired, a verbal warning cannot be used as basis for a more severe reprimand, like a written warning, in the step-by-step path to termination known as progressive discipline.

Under the agreement, reached on 14 February as an arbitrator was about to hear the first of the 15 cases, an employee whose verbal warning expires may “without consequence, state that he or she has not received a verbal warning”. The union said that normally, verbal warnings never expire under company policy, although their usefulness as a management stepping stone to more severe discipline diminishes greatly after a year. Under company policy, no records of verbal warnings are kept in personnel files, although employees’ supervisors normally keep their own records.

If any of the 15 journalists receive additional discipline (which would have to be based on something other than failing to meet PIP or appraisal goals) within the one-year period, the original verbal warning would remain in place, but the Guild would be free to challenge it along with the additional discipline.

“We think this settlement will help employees and their supervisors put this episode behind them without in any way impeding the union’s ability to defend its members in case things don’t turn out the way we hope,” said the Guild’s secretary-treasurer Peter Szekely, himself a former Reuters journalist.

Management also agreed to delete references to further discipline, including the prospect of termination, that began appearing in PIPs issued in 2012. The Guild said: “Stripped of their disciplinary taint, PIPs have returned to what Arbitrator Carol Wittenberg's trendsetting November decision said they should be: ‘A positive tool to help employees achieve performance levels expected by the company by providing the employee with feedback, guidance and coaching – a positive performance tool’.” She had ruled that PIPs are part of the appraisal process. As such, failing to meet PIP goals falls in the same discipline-free zone as failing to meet appraisal goals. She ordered Reuters to expunge a journalist's PIP-based verbal warning.

The Guild withdrew its arbitration demands on behalf of all 15 journalists. Also withdrawn was a case that generically challenged management’s use of PIPs as a disciplinary tool. The arbitrator’s ruling effectively rendered that case redundant.

The union described the story of PIPs as “a disciplinary sweep of unprecedented proportions during which the very sound of the acronym went from cute to terrifying, even for the hundreds who were not targeted”.

It said the first of 33 journalists, including well established veterans who had been given low appraisal scores for the first time in their careers, were summoned to meetings with their supervisors early last year. “In some cases, correspondents and their editors who had worked harmoniously for years were suddenly looking at one another from across a new divide...

“For about one-third of the journalists, the ordeal ended after their first PIP and verbal warning. But for many more there were additional PIPs and an escalation of discipline. Before it was over, more than half of the targeted journalists had left the company, including eight who were dismissed. Another 10 left voluntarily under separation agreements, one of them as recently as January.”

The union added: “Behind the disciplinary explosion were the contrasting journalistic styles of the [editor-in-chief Stephen] Adler team, which reveres the expansive prose of big-name writers that traditionally has been better suited to glossy pages than to flat screens, and wire service veterans who strive for an economy of words and are used to toiling in relative anonymity. There were also the undeniable characteristics of age and service time. As a group, the targeted U.S. journalists had twice the length of service with Reuters and were several years older than those not targeted. And while the PIP eruption reached across the world, the brunt of it seemed to be in the United States, where the Adler team members’ careers, connections and many of their initiatives are rooted.”

A few weeks after the arbitrator’s ruling Thomson Reuters management contacted all eight of the fired journalists with offers of reinstatement. After settlement discussions with the Guild, the journalists were made whole for any loss of pay and benefits from the dates of their terminations to the end of 2012. All but one, Carole Vaporean in New York, opted not to reclaim their old jobs in exchange for enhanced severance. She returned to work on 4 February with a clean record.

Management also withdrew all PIP-related discipline, except verbal warnings, it had issued to the still-employed journalists. “With the Guild and management agreeing last week to allow those 15 verbal warnings to expire after a year, the number of PIP-related disputes, which at one time numbered several dozen, has been reduced to zero,” the union said.

PHOTO: Reuters journalists in the New York newsroom celebrate the return of Carole Vaporean, seated, on 4 February. ■