WBNG-represented workers at the York (Penn.) Dispatch daily newspaper have a new three-year collective bargaining agreement that features an immediate 3 percent raise and a clause assuring that employees on staff under the previous contract will continue to receive free individual medical insurance coverage.
The agreement with the York Dispatch Publishing Company is the second for Dispatch employees since the unit’s local began its merger with the Washington-Baltimore NewsGuild in 2011. The previous WBNG pact, also for three years, expired Oct. 6; the recently signed deal ends on that date in 2018.
The contract increases the shift differential from $2 to $5, and boosts monthly cellphone reimbursement from $30 to $50. The mileage rate also was hiked, from 45 cents to 50 cents.
Operated by an independent publisher, the Dispatch has a lease arrangement with Gannett. On June 1, the nation’s largest newspaper chain acquired the Dispatch and 10 other daily news properties from Digital First Media (DFM). The purchase included the WBNG-represented York Daily Record/Sunday News, and the nearby Chambersburg Public Opinion, Hanover Sun, and Lebanon Daily News. Employees at these three south-central Pennsylvania news properties do not have Guild representation.
The Guild’s two-year contract at the Daily Record expires June 30, 2016, and – unlike the deal negotiated at theDispatch – will be bargained with Gannett, which announced in August that it was moving the 10-person Daily Record Design Department to Louisville, Ky. When the move is completed in mid-November, the number of Guild-represented workers at the Daily Record will have been reduced from 46 to 36.
Fifteen Dispatch employees are covered by the latest Guild contract.