Visual Editors
Visual Editors, NFP was incorporated as a 501(c)(3) non-profit in 2004.
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Josh Crutchmer
Maestro
Joined: 22 Oct 2004
Posts: 251
Location: Omaha World-Herald
Posted:
Sun Dec 03, 2006 9:15 pm
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You know. I've been through this twice, most recently in 2001. It took the newsroom -- and newspaper as a whole -- about two full years to get over those cutbacks.
And that was from a relatively small cutback (7 in the newsroom, I believe, and less than 30 company-wide), and that feeling came from the people who still HAD jobs.
Cast in its best light, what's going on is a tragedy of the highest order, begging one question and underlying one premise: Can't there be a better way?
Cast in its worst light, it's a disgrace and an embarrassment, an insult to human beings who deserve better, in the name of percentage points on a corporate computer somewhere. |
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reid brown
Juke Box Hero
Joined: 15 Mar 2005
Posts: 44
Location: Cleveland Plain Dealer
Posted:
Mon Dec 04, 2006 10:30 am
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I always have to chuckle, ruefully, whenever the call goes out to wear a certain color shirt, or an armband, or to “take five at five”, or whatever. Of course I don’t expect the Guild to go out and knee-cap anybody, but you just know that when the Powers That Be look down on our weak little rituals, they’ve got to just sit back and laugh.
I was at the Merc for 10 years, and once upon a time it really was the coolest place to work. I’ve still got a lot of friends there, and it breaks my heart that they have to go through this crap over and over and over again. I don’t remember there being a whole lot of deadwood back in the day, and there certainly can’t be any now. They’re a bunch of bright-eyed, hard-working folks, and due to the high cost of living in the Bay Area a lot of them have passed up what most folks would consider to be the principle niceties of middle-class life (like home ownership, for example, or having savings accounts that reach four figures) so they can pursue work they love. And it just doesn’t seem to matter.
But silly as it is, I’m wearing a Merc shirt at work today, anyway, my old 1999/2000 millennium sweatshirt, not because I think it’s gonna make a molecule’s worth of difference, but out of respect for my friends. I just wish I could do something real, something tangible, and it frustrates and angers me that I can’t.
I’ll be going to lunch tomorrow about the same time the last of the bad phone calls is being be made. By the time I sit down with my tray in the Plain Dealer cafeteria, 100 people, many of them close friends of mine, will be out of work.
Bon appetit.
_________________
"What do you do if your kid can only count to four? Buy him a drum kit and tell the world he's gifted!"
-- Tre Cool |
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Luke Knox
Maestro
Joined: 05 Jan 2005
Posts: 258
Location: Arizona Republic
Posted:
Tue Dec 05, 2006 6:21 am
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Mark Friesen over at Newsdesigner is following the goings-on, sounds like there was a reduction in the number of layoffs after a deal was struck Monday (according to reports from EastBayExpress.com). Regardless, today's a very tough one for our comrades at the Merc, and my thoughts are with them.
| Quote: | The San Jose Mercury News and the union representing reporters, photographers, editors, and advertising staff reached a tentative contract agreement this morning that will save more than forty jobs. However, MediaNews, the company that owns the Merc, the Oakland Tribune, the Contra Costa Times and several other Bay Area dailies still plans to eliminate 27.5 full-time equivalent union positions tonight and tomorrow morning at the Merc. It’s not clear how many non-union jobs the company still plans to cut this week. The company originally announced that it would slash 101 total Merc positions, of which 69 were union-represented, including forty from the newsroom.
The tentative deal was reached after a twenty-hour bargaining session that ended at 7:45 a.m. today. In exchange for the reduced layoffs, the union – the San Jose Newspaper Guild – agreed to allow the company to assign some work currently done by Merc staffers to lower-paid employees at other MediaNews papers. But the company promised that the reassigned work would not result in more layoffs at the Merc. MediaNews also vowed to not lay off any more Merc staffers at least until July 1, 2007.
MediaNews also promised to give each union worker a $1,000 signing bonus to offset increased healthcare costs, plus a4 percent raise spread over two years. The company also dropped its demand for a two-tiered wage system where newly hired journeymen reporters at the Merc would make only $43,000 annually compared to about $60,000 under the old contract.
Here is a memo from the guild about the new tentative deal, which still must be approved by the rank and file:
San Jose Newspaper Guild Bargaining Bulletin #15
December 4, 2006
After a 20-hour bargaining session that ended at 7:45 a.m. this morning, the Guild and the Mercury News reached a tentative agreement on a new two-year contract.
As a result, the company will reduce its number of Guild layoffs from 69 to 27.51 full-time equivalent positions. The layoffs will be announced tonight and tomorrow. As part of the agreement, the company will guarantee no further layoffs in the bargaining unit at least through June 30, 2007.
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