10/26/2021
From a great friend and colleague:
Work-to-rule: what does it mean?
Many peoples' jobs involve more tasks than are explicitly laid out in their job descriptions. Sometimes they're things you volunteer for. Sometimes, they're things your boss volunteers you for.
And sometimes, there used to be several people who were in charge of a task, but the other people have moved on, and you're the only one left doing the thing.
A little bit of this "extra" work isn't often an issue, as long as it doesn't interfere with workers' ability to do their actual jobs. But sometimes, a company flat-out relies on this "extra" (and often unpaid) labor.
And for a company that's laid off a huge percentage of its staff in the last 5 years, it's all but certain that too few people are doing too much unpaid work.
At a newspaper, that means reporters covering more beats, ad sales covering larger territories without extra support, editors doubling as page designers...the list goes on.
Well today, the folks at the Gazette are saying: no more. They're showing up to work, and doing their jobs, but no one is going to do any tasks outside their written job description. Imagine what your workplace would look like if all those little un-acknowledged, unsaid tasks didn't happen for a day. For a week. It might get some attention, yeah?
If you're reading this and thinking, "Don't those guys have a contract yet? Didn't they start negotiating, like, forever ago?" The answer is: No, they don't. And yes, they did. And it's taken them THIS long to get desperate enough to just...do their jobs. And ONLY their jobs.
Solidarity and strength to all the reporters, designers, circulation folks, ad people, and admins over at the Pioneer Valley NewsGuild!!
