A new round of buyouts and involuntary downsizing has eliminated six jobs in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel newsroom, including five represented by the Milwaukee Newspaper Guild.
Journal Sentinel Inc. management has not announced the total number of positions eliminated throughout all newspaper departments, but some sources indicate it could be more than two dozen. The staff reductions were completed during the past week.
The latest cuts mark a return to what had become a troubling trend. During 2009 alone, buyouts and layoffs cut the newsroom work force by one-third. But no downsizing had touched our bargaining unit since then.
“I’m hoping we can keep our current numbers stable, but as we’ve seen the company is willing to squeeze the newsroom any time it feels like its financial numbers aren’t up to snuff,” Guild President Tom Silverstein told members. “I remain dismayed that, with few exceptions, the newsroom cuts have been aimed at bargaining-unit employees and not management.”
The most recent staff reductions started with the August announcement that the company was offering buyouts to newsroom, production and circulation employees. Managers did not indicate the buyouts were a prelude to involuntary cuts. But when the buyouts fell short of a target that had never been announced, the buyout window was extended for newsroom employees only, with a warning that layoffs could follow.
Most of those who left the newsroom took voluntary buyouts. The Guild contract requires the company to offer buyouts to our bargaining-unit members before sending out layoff notices, and the buyout packages must be no less favorable than the contractually required severance deal of two weeks’ pay for each year of service.
By contrast, in some departments where employees are not represented by unions, the company moved directly to involuntary cuts without offering buyouts.
In contract negotiations now under way, the company is seeking to eliminate all severance pay guarantees, while the Guild is seeking to preserve the current severance level.