Furloughs beginning at CNHI...

Dude, you have all the other boards to play your silly games on. This is not one of them. People on this board are pretty serious about the crap that's going on in the industry. You want to play your game with me, send it as a PM. Thanks

 

So is CNHI close to bankruptcy or not?

 

I doubt anyone on this board has an answer to that question, but I doubt bankruptcy is in the near future. I do think its days of reckless expansion will never return.

 

I'm concerned because I know two people who are in this organization over two states, all of whom have been bought by other papers in that rapid expansion. Talked to one after these furloughs were announced. They're operating with faulty computers, no photographer in the evening and no laptops to take on game coverage on the road. And are expected to do their jobs with less.

 

Very grim situation.

 

Honestly, that sounds like typical CNHI. It has really gone from very bad to even worse.

 

So if a company can't finance its infrastructure, the next thing to happen is bankruptcy.

 

Eventually, yes, but I don't think they are done squeezing the pennies out yet.

 

CNHI has never financed its infrastructure. Not in the 2000s anyway when they were acquiring papers left and right and the econony was good. This is nothing new, so to extrapolate that to bankruptcy is a bit of a stretch. They've always been cheapo in that regard even when they had the money.

Of course they'll squeeze pennies, so is every other media company out there, so is most every other company period.

At risk of being a dickhead, I don't know what makes our bitching about our industry that much different from those who are laid off, furloughed, have their pay cut in other industries. In my town, a factory closed yesterday, and 147 people will be out of work. No warning, no recourse, no nothing. Sadly, our industry is not unique in this regard, though it hurts just as much because most of us do have an emotional investment in what we do.

It sucks ass, and furloughs are dumb in a business where you have to make a daily product, but to this point, I have to say that CNHI hasn't gone as far down the shit trough as some other companies have as far as squeezing employees, hard as that may seem to believe for those of us who work for CNHI. Maybe Morris-style paycuts or McClatchy-style sweeping layoffs are coming down the pike, never say never, but it hasn't come to that extent yet.

Based on what I know, CNHI is no better or worse off than any other media company is right now. The debt service, also not unique to CNHI, is a major problem, but that fact that they're not publicly traded does help them a small bit.

The grass always seems greener on the other side. Right now, CNHI's grass doesn't seem any browner to me than anyone else's is. I don't consider them anymore "evil" than any other media company, especially some of the others I've worked for.

 

When the economy recovers, most industries will come back and hire again.

 

Really? Why so much faith in those other industries? They're just as cutthroat and uncaring as ours is, probably worse in many ways.

My dad told me about "Black Friday's" when he worked at Pepsi in management. He'd walk in one day and he'd have five other managers in his team for whatever project they were doing. With no warning, three of his partners would be axed, usually for no other reason than a profit line on a graph didn't work out Pepsi's way that quarter. There was no guarantee those jobs were ever going to comeback, they rarely did.

My point is that the shit newspapers are doing now is not unique to our industry. When I have family members and friends who have taken the stick in similar ways in their own walks of life, I admit, I get a little peeved when I constantly read about how the plight of our industry is somehow worse or that our companies are more inherently "evil" than non-media companies. Maybe I shouldn't feel that way, but I do.

The economy sucks for everyone right now. CNHI is no more evil than GM, Macy's, et al, who have cut deep in their own industries. Media isn't the only industry looking for that elusive safe harbor right now. We're all out to sea.

 

I think we're getting some threads crossed here.

Are you asking why people are reacting so emotionally to these layoffs in general, or why they are accusing the ownership of being so immoral?

The answer to the first is because the industry is dead and not coming back, the recession just hastened a process that was already inevitable. The answer to the second is because it's human nature.