The Tribune Company-;publisher of the Chicago Tribune newspaper-;notified employees this month of plans to add domestic-partner benefits to its company-wide health insurance plan, effective Jan. 1, 2002. The benefits will affect all of the company's 24,000 employees who are eligible for insurance, said Tribune spokesman John Lyday.
The decision comes one year after the Tribune Company's merger with the Times Mirror media chain. The combined company owns a number of multimedia operations, 22 TV stations and 11 daily newspapers, including The Los Angeles Times, Newsday in New York and two publications in Florida.
Before the merger, Times Mirror employees had domestic-partner benefits, and the Trib had agreed to honor those plans until the end of this year, Lyday said.
Extending benefits to all Trib employees was one by-product of the merger and its resulting integration, he said. "Representatives from different units looked at the benefits and came up with an integrated package," he said.
Under the plan, same-sex and unmarried opposite-sex couples are eligible for health benefits after being in an exclusive domestic-partner relationship for at least 12 months, said Spencer Fletcher, director of employee communications for the Tribune Company.
Fletcher and Lyday said they did not have estimates on how many employees will sign up for the benefits or how much the new package will cost the company.
Mitch Locin, openly gay senior electronic news editor at the Trib, said he wasn't surprised by the company's willingness to take the plunge.
"I think that for me, the Tribune's always been very innovative," he said. "The Tribune's always had very good employee relations and reached out as new needs for employees are identified."
Locin, who has been with the Trib for over 26 years, said he has been very visible in the company.
"As a longtime employee, I have had long conversations with Tribune executives about these policies over the years," he said. "My point was to put a face of someone they knew onto this discussion."
He said he always found people, including corporate and newsroom executives, to be supportive and inquisitive.
"I've had nothing but the best response when I asked for an appointment and asked them about this," he said.
There hasn't been much newsroom buzz about the decision, he said, adding, "I just haven't really heard any commentary one way or the other."
He noted that the company has also added sexual orientation to its anti-harassment policy.
In November, representatives from the National Lesbian and Gay Journalists Association met with Tribune executives to discuss the benefits package.
Fletcher and Lyday denied that external pressure had anything to do with the Tribune's decision, saying that the company had its eye on keeping its benefits in line with other firm's.
NLGJA has said that the number of media outlets offering DP benefits has more than doubled—from 26 to 73—since 1997. See www.nlgja.org .
