Missing the Point

No, no. I came to this story from a link, half-expecting to, I don't know, read a story about someone forgetting something important, or getting lost walking down the hallway. But no. It's about union seniority issues. Cute shouldn't complicate or mislead, which is what this headline does now. It doesn't serve accuracy or SEO requirements or anything else.

Senior moment costs NY Times in arbitration

THE New York Times' management was dealt a setback in its effort to cut staff after the troubled newspaper company lost an arbitration hearing on allegations it tried to rig the union's seniority rules in order to lay off workers.

In a bid to make firing easier, the Times management had been arguing that if a unionized member switched departments at the paper, the member's seniority would reset to zero at the new department.

The Newspaper Guild told its members Monday that arbitrator Martin Scheinman rejected that notion.

Instead, Scheinman ruled in favor of the Guild, supporting the view "that seniority used to determine Newsroom employees' vulnerability to layoffs must be measured by their service in the entire News Department."

"They lost, as they should have on that one," said one veteran editor, who is not in the union. As a result, total length of service will determine seniority.