Bloodbath at the Chron [layoffs, layoffs, layoffs at San Francisco newspaper]

It’s been a brutal day at the San Francisco Chronicle, as managers walked from desk to desk, handpicking reporters and photographers to be laid off. “The white envelopes are going out,” said one insider. “It’s definitely a bloodbath,” added another. The Chron plans to lay off up to sixty union-represented newsroom employees in the next week. For the past week, the paper offered buyouts in an effort to cut eighty jobs, but only about twenty employees took the offer, one insider said. See the buyout offer after the jump.

Among the list of managers who were canned was the Chron’s Washington D.C. bureau chief, Marc Sandalow. He was well-known and respected reporter who provided straightforward, easy to read analysis of Washington news events. Sandalow also was a frequent guest analyst on KCBS radio. “That one had us scratching our heads – Sandalow was one of the faces of the newspaper,” said one Chron insider.

Among the reporters who reportedly took the buyout were science writer Keay Davidson and environmental reporter Glen Martin. Under the buyout, employees were offered two weeks of pay for every year of service, with a maximum payout of no more than one year’s pay. Here is a Q&A from the newspaper guild:

Two weeks pay per year of service for eligible employees, up to one year's pay, along with health care paid for up to one year. Pay is calculated based on final straight pay rate. Employees will be told individually if he or she is eligible.

The company announced a goal of reducing 100 newsroom jobs, including about 80 held by Guild members. We hope to avoid layoffs in the newsroom with these voluntary buyouts after we became convinced there was no other alternative. We agreed to the buyout terms in an attempt to reduce or perhaps eliminate the need for layoffs in the newsroom. Our discussions with management resulted in improvements in the original buyout, but we are convinced no better terms are available. The company has said it will not negotiate individual enhancements.

That may not become clear until after the buyout phase is complete, which we expect may take about a month for all departments.

Clearly not. Our members in the newsroom generate the content readers and advertisers want, and reducing newsroom jobs inevitably hurts the editorial product. We see no point in arguing against the company's decision to cut jobs -- clearly, the management has the right to reduce the force. But these short-term cost reductions should not be confused with a long-term business plan that is capable of restoring profitability.

Would it harm my career if I approach management and ask what I would be offered under a buyout package but then later decide not to take it?

Any employee is free anytime to inquire about terms if they are considering retirement or resignation. Obviously, this would be a pointless question for anyone with no desire to leave the Chronicle. It might also send an inaccurate message about one's intentions. But there should be no penalty for asking questions, and management can't take any punitive measures without due cause.

After the buyouts are done, assuming there aren’t enough, how will seniority figure into any layoffs?

Seniority is based on original hire date, then by department and classification. Under the contract, the newsroom is divided into the following departments for purposes of a layoff: sports, features, business, photography and library. Copy editors and certain news desk positions are grouped together. The remaining editorial employees are grouped as one department. Within those departments, each classification (i.e., job title as listed in the contract) are grouped separately (columnists, reporters, photographers, etc.) In the event of a layoff, the Guild must be notified one week in advance of the number, classifications and departments of jobs affected, and a seniority list must be provided. Within a week of this notice, any employee in the classification and department affected may retire, and this could reduce the number of employees designated for layoff. The employer may designate up to 25% of employees in any one classification or department as being of “major importance”, thereby saving a person with low seniority from being laid off. This designation cannot be made for arbitrary or capricious reasons.

What can the management do to me if I refuse a buyout but have enough seniority to avoid layoff, and if you turn down the offer, will your assignment change?

The employer can change schedules or assignments for business reasons, and we expect will try to minimize the disruptions that may come if sections or beats are eliminated in the smaller newsroom. No transfers or job changes can be made for punitive reasons. It's also important to keep in mind that seniority rank, and hence risk of being laid off, may change after the buyouts and any reassignments.

Meetings with individual employees will probably start at the end of this week. The employee will be called to a meeting in Human Resources, presented with a buyout offer, informed that it is voluntary, but encouraged to seriously consider it. The employee will have a week to decide whether to submit a resignation and take the money. The employee will have another week to rescind the resignation. There would be an opportunity to agree upon a termination date. Anyone signing up for this offer would, under a law that protects people from making rash decisions, have an additional 45 days to sign the separation agreement and general release.

Yes, and we encourage individuals to do so. Guild representatives will be available and meetings may be postponed within reason to accommodate schedules.

When you are tapped on the shoulder, how will your last day of employment be determined?

The termination date will be mutually agreed upon, but must be within a reasonable time period.

If you are offered a buyout and are close to your anniversary date, how will that work in terms of years of service?

Years of service will be pro-rated, and if it is necessary to remain on the payroll longer in order reach a significant date for pension purposes, this can be worked out.

Part-timers will be given full credit for years of service, starting with their date of hire. They would be paid their full (37.5 hours) weekly salary multiplied by the appropriate number of weeks.

Will those who either accept a buyout or are laid off be eligible for unemployment benefits, even if their pension begins?

COBRA, the federal program that guarantees your rights to continue medical insurance after termination, allows an employee to extend current medical coverage for up to 18 months. If you accept a buyout, the company makes COBRA contributions to the Guild H&W plan on your behalf to retain coverage commensurate with your buyout offer.

How does this affect the two weeks per year of service under the previous pension plan?

This benefit is totally separate from the buyout offers being made. Employees who were vested in the pension plan as of January 1, 2006 (meaning you had worked at the paper since at least January 1, 2001) are entitled to two weeks pay for every year of service. This lump sum benefit is part of the pension and is paid out to employees upon termination or retirement. Again, this is totally separate from this buyout offer.

An analysis of Marc Sandalow’s biased reporting, by Alec Rawls, taken from this source: http://www.rawls.org/special_report_ca_media_bias.htm

Appendix: Some recent examples of lying in The San Francisco Chronicle and The San Jose Mercury News

Like The New York Times, The San Jose Mercury News and The San Francisco Chronicle lie with great regularity, often by commission, constantly by omission, always with the goal of slandering conservatives and conservatism. Consider three recent examples.

1. The San Francisco Chronicle, 9/2/2003. A news analysis on this date by Chronicle Washington bureau chief, Marc Sandalow, begins:

“Of all the arguments advanced by Gov. Gray Davis to fight the recall, none resonates more strongly with Democrats coast-to-coast than his assertion that Republicans are engaged in a systematic effort to steal elections.” [5]

The analysis then goes on to validate this perception. First, the theme of analyzing Democrat perceptions gives Sandalow a free hand to discuss Democrat viewpoints without having to consider competing Republican viewpoints. Thus for instance, he quotes Democrats complaining about supposed Republican perfidy in the Florida election, without giving any space to the other side. That is handy, because the de facto substance of the Supreme Court’s ruling was that it was the Democrat side, abetted by the Democrat dominated Florida Supreme Court, that was trying to steal the election. The U.S. Supremes agreed 7-2 that the Florida Supremes were allowing unconstitutional practices. (In fact, the Florida Supremes were letting Democrat election officials fish for counting schemes that would close the gap between Bush and Gore.) By a vote of 5-4 the U.S. Supremes then ruled in effect that giving the Florida Supremes a second chance to defy the Constitution was not a good enough reason to set aside the electoral college deadline. This is the actual substance of the Democrats’ charge of election stealing: that Republicans on the Supreme Court didn’t give them a second chance to steal the election, but Sandalow just lets the Democrat charge of election stealing stand unopposed.

Sandalow then goes on to make a systematic list of Democrat charges that the Republicans are trying to “overturn the will of the voters.” Reporting on the Democrat view of the subject again gives Sandalow an excuse to list charges uncritically. For instance, Sandalow lists as a Democrat complaint the Texas case where: “Democratic legislators, who fled the state to prevent [redistricting] from coming to a vote, are now facing threats of fines of over $50,000 per senator and other reprisals from the GOP majority.” Punishment of Democrats for lawbreaking is listed as an undemocratic behavior on the part of Republicans, while no note is made that the punished lawbreaking had the express purpose preventing the Texas majority from wielding its legitimate powers. Neither is this overt effort to defy the will of the voters mentioned anywhere else in Sandalow’s analysis.

Of the Democrat complaints listed by Sandalow, the only one that has any substance is how the Republicans, after losing the 1996 presidential election, “defied public opinion by impeaching the president.” This has been an unfortunate aspect of our national politics ever since the Democrats created the special prosecutor law in the wake of Watergate. Whoever loses the presidency can use the special prosecutor law to put the president through the wringer. The Reagan administration was subject to seven special prosecutor investigations.[6] Sandalow makes no mention of how, until Clinton became ensnared in it, this Democrat creation was used almost exclusively by Democrats to attack Republicans.

While Sandalow lists every inflated Democrat charge, Republican complaints are listed cursorily and incompletely. Sandalow notes that Republicans: “point to the Democrats’ own legal efforts to challenge Forida’s certified results in 2000, and to the party’s controversial replacement of Sen. Bob Torricelli on the New Jersey ballot last year just 36 days before the election.” No mention is made of the Republican interpretation of the Florida ruling—that by a 7-2 vote of the Supreme Court, the Democrats were caught cheating—and no mention is made that the late substitution of Frank Lautenberg for Robert Torricelli was contrary to New Jersey election law.

Most glaringly, Sandalow makes no mention anywhere in his article of the unprecedented and largely successful effort by Democrats to block President Bush’s judicial nominations via the majority-overriding mechanism of the filibuster. A 1500 word article on obstruction of majority rule, and this unprecedented obstruction of majority rule, keeping the Senate from its constitutional obligation to yield advice and consent (i.e. to vote), goes unremarked!

To support this one sided list of supposed Republican abuses, Sandalow then turns to supposedly neutral sources, “scholars and observers not affiliated with either party,” who support the Democrat charges.

The first “neutral” scholar cited is Allan Lichtman. No mention is made that this “neutral” scholar was an advisor to Al Gore during the 2000 elections and that his analysis of the 2000 elections, contained in the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights’ majority report on the elections, was roundly criticized by minority report author Abgail Thernstrom as blatantly biased and incompetent.[7] Lichtman, not surprisingly, toes the Democrat line, claiming that: “There has never been a use of power to this extent, in this magnitude, to change the whole structure of politics.”

A second supposedly neutral commentator is Alan Ehrenhald, executive editor Governing Magazine, described by Sandalow as a “stridently nonpartisan” publication. Ehrenhald affirms that: “most of the serious outrages lately have come from the GOP side of the aisle.” His explanation? “When you don’t believe in government too much in the first place, you are less committed to the process of orderly management of government,” a statement that completely reveals Ehrenhald to be a statist-leftist. He does not even understand the concept of limited government! Conservatives are not “anti-government.” Limited government is about government having a proper role, outside of which it should not exist, but inside of which it should be powerful and efficient.

This statist-leftist is presented by Sandalow as a neutral authority who “tried hard to come up with similar Democratic ‘horror stories’ to balance an editorial titled ‘Republicans behaving badly’,” but couldn’t think of any. As fellow honest-broker Lichtman puts it: “The Republican Party is on a mission and the Democratic Party isn’t.”

Clinton didn’t behave badly, it was the Republicans who behaved badly by caring that he lied under oath. Texas Democrats didn’t behave badly by trying to deny majority rule a quorum, Republicans behaved badly by caring about subversion of majority rule. Democrats aren’t behaving badly by obstructing majority rule on judicial nominations. That doesn’t even bear mentioning. Democrats didn’t behave badly for trying to steal the Florida election. Republicans behaved badly for stopping them. It isn’t the Democrats fault that most Californians despise Gray Davis. It is the Republicans fault for giving Californians the chance to express that majority opinion. Sandalow and his “neutral observers” buy it all.

The one other-side-of-the-story that Sandalow does allow is how the wielding of majority power to solidify power is the way politics has always worked. Republican use of such powers as redistricting is nothing new. Democrats did the same thing when they were in the majority. This modicum of balance does nothing to offset the bogus claim that all the current “bad behavior” is on the Republican side. Its role in Sandalow’s article is only to explain this bad behavior. Still, Sandalow’s one bit of balance does point us in the right direction: it is Republicans who are wielding majority power, and Democrats who are resisting it.

Redistricting is majority rule. Voting on judicial nominations is majority rule. Recall elections are majority rule. In fact, all the efforts to undermine majority rule are on the Democrat side, just as we should expect at a time when Democrats are in transition from the majority to the minority. This is the real story: it is not Republicans who are resisting the will of the people, it is the Democrats.

Democrat resistance to majority rule ought not necessarily to be considered perfidious. Our system affords minority protections and minority powers for a reason. American republicanism is designed to serve and protect minorities as well as majorities. But Sandalow gets the story backwards, accusing Republicans of being the ones who are (now that they are in the majority) resisting majority rule! He is able to support this absurd thesis only by blatantly misrepresenting every fact involved.

Sandalow’s mindset is one of practiced obliviousness to any inconvenient truth. He can see the punishment of Texas Democrats for breaking the law as ruthless, yet still scratch his head alongside the “stridently non-partisan” Ehrenhald in trying to come up with any transgression the Democrats might have committed. Think, Sandalow, think! Might Democrat lawbreaking, for the express purposes of obstructing majority rule, constitute an attempt to “overturn the will of the people”?

Sandalow has the mentality of a Palestinian terrorist. Every Israeli act of self-defense is seen as an act of aggression, while the Palestinian terror bombings that force Israelis to defend themselves are seen as wholly innocent. This from the man who filters Washington news for San Francisco readers. Sandalow is the perfect counterpart to the Chronicle’s editorial board, who smear Republicans every day while depicting Democrats as earnest and good. They are the West Coast’s Al-Jazeera, or rather, one of its four Al-Jazeeras.

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:-)