Tuesday, March 11, 2008
Downsizing at the Los Angeles Times
On Sunday one hundred and twenty pressroom employees from the Los Angeles Times Orange County and Olympic Facilities gathered in Duarte for the status of negotiations with the company. The news was not pleasant, with the Los Angeles Times setting an ultimatum for $1.8 million in cuts to be made by this Thursday the 13th of March, from the union, or thirty-one pressroom employees are to be laid off, with a six week severance.
The tactics the Los Angeles Times is using, as leverage against the men of women of the two pressrooms, seems to be retaliation for voting the union in last January, 2007. The pressroom employees have not been unionized for almost forty years, but one outspoken Tribune Boss, is completely responsible for bringing the union into the Times, yet many innocent victims will be displaced.
This action is not only about thirty-one employees being retaliated against, it’s about thirty-one families losing their livelihood, which many of my colleagues and I find unfortunate and unbelievable. All Tribune Company Employees that are being requested to leave, receive fifty-two weeks of severance pay, with the Los Angeles Times Pressrooms being singled out with six weeks severance.
For this reason the struggle will be taken to the public through picket lines outside Times Mirror Square, the Olympic Facility, and the Times Orange County Facility within the next few days.
The employees of the Los Angeles Times Pressrooms are seeking voluntary buyouts first, and then layoffs as a last resort.
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4 comments:
The history of the union at the Times and some knowledgeable people who care for their friends at the Times tried to tell you and yours what was going to happen but all of you that voted the union in chose to ignore that past and their advice.
You were led to believe, by a few “brothers and sisters” that you would lose nothing!
I sincerely hope that more of you and your families don’t lose more of what you currently have or could have! The best thing that can happen is that each employee of the Times, no matter what your position, do your assigned job to the best of your ability. In these tough times, that is the only thing that you can really control and the only thing that will make a difference, in the long run, for all.
OK, Ed and all you other lame pressmen who don't still get it. YOU and all of your 51% voted YES to bargain with everything you HAD.
YOU gave up your right to be included with the rest of the company. All decisions must now be bargained for, this is what you voted for!
Your negotiating team, such that it is, must NEGOTIATE a buy out package.
If you want 52 weeks, what will you give to the company? That is how negotiating works.
Nothing will be given to you for free. Those days are now over. Your jobs and working conditions are now in the hands of strangers and co- workers who may have a different motivation.
Who do you think is paying them for all the days off they have had? NOT the company.
Sure glad I took the buyout in 2005.
The 51% vote your speaking about saved jobs from the prior layoff a year ago.And as matter of fact the negotiators only get paid by the union when they are scheduled to work their normal shift. They get nothing for representing you and the rest of you sitting at home on your day off talking shit on something you have no idea about.You think your work ethic will save you but even without the union the company has never selected only a few specific people to take a buy out.
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