Posted on 01/08/2007 10:24:51 AM PST by abb
NEW YORK Less than a week after about 70 newsroom employees were laid off at the Philadelphia Inquirer, at least 34 advertising positions - including 16 part-timers - are being cut today at Philadelphia Newspapers, which handles business operations for the Inquirer and Daily News.
Henry Holcomb, president of the Newspaper Guild of Greater Philadelphia, said the affected employees were being informed Monday morning one by one, with union representatives sitting in on the meetings with management. "We have just gotten word and they are in the process of informing them now," Holcomb said about the impacted employees, who are among some 300 advertising department workers.
Although Publisher Brian Tierney predicted weeks ago that some 150 employees at the two papers could be cut, Holcomb says today's announcement was a surprise.
"We didn't expect them today so we can't say what else is in line," Holcomb said.
Holcomb said the union is also continuing to challenge the seniority list for last week's layoffs, claiming some of those who have been affected actually have more seniority than others who were not laid off. "We see people who are on the list with more seniority and those left off with less," said Holcomb, who declined to provide specific examples. "A lot of that is the result of [former owner] Knight Ridder not keeping good data."
Jay Devine, a spokesman for Philadelphia Media Holdings, which owns the papers, could not immediately be reached for comment. Last week's layoffs came just weeks after the guild, which represents about 900 employees, signed a new contract.
Holcomb added that management has agreed to change the layoff list when the union provides proof that some laid-off employees were wrongly included. "We are getting answers from the company and sometimes they acknowledge [they] are wrong," he said.
Joe Strupp (jstrupp@editorandpublisher.com) is a senior editor at E&P.
"There was a land of Publishers and Editors called the Newspaper Business... Here in this pretty world Journalism took its last bow... Here was the last ever to be seen of Reporters and their Enablers, of Anonymous Sources and of Stringers... Look for it only in books, for it is no more than a dream remembered. A Civilization Gone With the Wind..."
With apologies to Margaret Mitchell...
Ping
LOL!
The execs/high priests and priestesses will become blood thirsty and will gladly be Aztec High Priests in their dealings with their underlings. They will eagerily use human sacrifices/firings to appease the evil Gods of the business world. Top management knows that there is no place for them to run to for a big paycheck. So they will gladly sacrifice the peons under them to stay employed until they too are sacrificed.
Now every fishwrap employee is just one personality conflict away from being sacrificed to the Fishwrap Gods, er, fired.
Who needs advertising staff when your reporters' bias has run off your advertisers?
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