Gannett 1-week furloughs

My wife is caught up in this, and our view on it is somewhat contrarian to most of the sentiment here. Do we like it? Of course not. But at least Gannett is trying something different than the cycle of buyout/layoff/buyout/layoff that every other outfit is relying on. And, no, there's NO WAY we'd rather have a 2 percent pay cut. Why? Because if business ever gets sustainable again, with the furlough you're right back at your old pay, while with the cut your base pay is decreased.

One estimate says this move will save the company something equal to 600 jobs. If giving up a week's pay saves 600 jobs, I think that's the better move.

Some places, at least, are very serious about you not working. My wife's supervisor told her to give him her company phone the day she leaves and she'll get it back when she returns.

 

Jersey_Guy, I am with you. I like the idea of furloughs if it saves jobs. Even though Gannett is a profitable company, they are going to keep the margin by making the work force pay for it one way or another. That sucks.

However, this is the least odious way to do it. I've seen too many writers and friends cut recently to want it to happen again. (Even though it is probably inevitable.)

What Gannett really needs to evaluate is whether it is reasonable to expect huge profits in this economy, especially if it means cannibalizing the product so much that you inadvertently teach your audience to live without a daily newspaper. Then you might as well just fold up the tent.

 

No doubt. The rub is, it won't save 600 jobs. Won't save 300 jobs or 100 jobs or 50 jobs or 1 job. It will buy Gannett a little more time before they lay people off anyway.

At best, it saved 600 jobs for this particular quarter. This quarter-to-quarter living is getting old. I wish Gannett would just do what it thought it needed to do long term and get it over with.

 

I'm with Jersey and Mod in that at least something different is being tried here. And I'm a little put off by people complaining about furloughs when we're just a month removed from around 3,000 of our number being cut loose completely. (And my furlough is next week, and it's going to hurt, so I know). I do look at this and at least, the very least, appreciate that Gannett apparently has come to the realization that to just keep cutting and cutting people takes too big a toll, if you want to try to bounce back at some point.

But Shifty, you're dead on. It's just a time-buying measure. And all this duck-and-cover stuff is only weakening newspapers to the point that it'll be easier for readers to say goodbye when that day finally comes.

What I'd rather see is a total one-week shutdown. No papers for a week. No web site, no news, no nothing. Louisville knocks off the No. 1 team in basketball? No story in the morning. No columns. Arizona Cardinals in the NFL playoffs? No print coverage. Want to read about it? Check out somebody's blog.

Probably a foolhardy suggestion. But I'd say without some kind of bold move, papers just get swept away in the current.

Maybe in that week (and I'd hope you'd see some thought put into rolling those papers back out, some print only, some web only, etc.) people might realize they need us as news organizations more than they thought. Maybe they'd realize they don't miss papers.

It's a risk, an unknown. But it sure looks like we know the end game of the course papers are on now.

 

If we wait six months, and Gannett doesn't lay anyone else off, then maybe I'll buy it. Until then, what evidence is there to suggest that Gannett won't just lay more people off next quarter?

 

Exactly.

I could deal with a furlough or a pay cut or a round of layoffs or whatever, as long as the company could tell me with sincerity, "... and that'll get us through the year," or thereabouts. It has to be so demoralizing for the employees. It's like, do what you've got to do, but just do it already. If I were a Gannett employee, I'd want them to figure out where they believe they ultimately need expenses to be and get them there. To quote Seinfeld, "One motion -- right off!"

This "death by a thousand cuts" process just keeps everyone on edge and draws out the situation for everyone involved. If you need to lay off 10% of the workforce, go ahead and do it. Don't do 2% this quarter, 3% the next quarter, 1% the next and so on. If you need everyone to take 3 weeks of furloughs by August, tell them that. If you need everyone to take a 2% pay cut, make it happen.

In many ways, it's better to just be laid off than to be strung out like Gannett is doing. It's not only demoralizing, but it feels like you're not being treated with respect, being expected to be happy with a furlough "because at least you have a job." Like Gannett is being the white knight, so nobly allowing you to take a week off without pay instead of kicking you out on your ass.

To all the people who've been laid off, my thoughts are certainly with you. And I know it absolutely sucks. But the people who are still employed at Gannett are in a sort of corporate-ordered limbo and, in many ways, it'd be better for the ones who are going to be freed to be freed now rather than later.

 

How about Gannett comes to the realization that it cannot expect to continue making the same percentage of profits it has in the past - especially during a recession?

Instead, Gannett's employees and readers see past everything that's happened in the past year. Just more examples that the only thing that matters to this company is the bottom line.

Employees have grown tired of having to do more with less (BLOGS!). Now it's not just stories but blogs, podcasts, videos, online updates. In some shops, it's more desk and photo work. But fewer people to do it and no OT. Better done than good, right?

This involuntary one-week of unpaid leave - I refuse to call it a furlough - is just the next step. More cuts, layoffs and involuntary unpaid leave will follow until Gannett gets a clue and finds a better plan for the future.

But nothing in Gannett's past proves that the company is capable of making rational decisions and finding a long-term solution to these problems.

 

I'm down with that. It's why I think what Detroit's doing actually might wake some people up.

 

Agreed.

 

In many ways, it's better to just be laid off than to be strung out like Gannett is doing?
Interesting logic. For you to type that sentence, I'm going to go ahead and guess you still have a job.

And you're right. We, the furlough-takers, are not being treated with respect. And it is demoralizing.

But do you think the THOUSANDS of journalists - in every chain at every paper - who have been laid off in the last few years feel like they were treated with respect?

At the very least, I'll keep cashing these paychecks as long as I can --- because I know plenty of good journalists that don't have that option anymore.

 

Guess all you want. You just might be wrong.

Regardless, it goes back to a friend of mine who was going through this recently. He was told he was being laid off at the end of the month, negotiated his severance package, etc. Then, two weeks later, they realize they really do need him and they want him back, basically because there's something he does that no one else can do, and they want that done one time that next month.

So should he just be thankful Gannett deemed him worthy of then giving him his job back? Or should he say, "Damn, I'm taking my severance, collecting unemployment and getting my ass out of that place"? He knows the job has a good chance of not lasting beyond the next set of layoffs anyway. At what point does your self respect take a hit?

Now, I realize that, in this economic climate, there are other considerations, as there are if you've got a family to feed at home. But in a sense, I think that, yes, the people laid off are potentially being treated with more respect. Doesn't mean it doesn't suck or that Gannett isn't as bad as everyone makes them out to be (they pretty much are), just that sometimes "You're fired" can be more liberating than "If you'll just take a week off without pay this quarter, we'll see fit to continue paying you a miniscule salary for awhile longer before we probably fire you anyway."