Milwaukee buyouts offered, layoffs pending

Sometimes, sure. But sometimes, the people most likely to take the paper's money and walk -- unless they're heading straight into retirement -- are talented people who are confident they can find a new, better job somewhere else. The big clump of dead weight in the middle -- those 35 to 55 who are scared to death that they won't be employable elsewhere -- will cling to their positions until their knuckles bleed. So the paper gets left with those who aren't all that good. And, if not enough volunteers walk, the newbies (usually younger and the current bosses' favorites, since they probably hired them) might have to get shed.

Bad system all the way around.

 

I've resisted posting this for a while but our place just offered buyouts. Four weeks salary for every year fulltime if you've been a fulltimer for two years. Plus, medical coverage until 65 if you're over 50, two years if you're under 50. They were looking to get 50-60 people buildingwide and about 20 in editorial. Some people were definitely targeted and if you didn't take the buyout, who knows where you could have landed. Not a fun time around there these days. Deadline to accept/decline is the end of the month.

 

Christ almighty, can you have more generalization in that post? Among other things, to say those who are 35-to-55 are "dead weight" is absolutely ridiculous.

 

Hey, Ned, thanks for the compliment, but I prefer "Joe almighty."

Also, nowhere do I suggest that all those who are 35-to-55 are dead weight. You need a logic review. And what I posted was no more of a generalization than the premise that papers "a lot of times" want to get rid of dead weight and, gee, "not to stereotype, but" some of those are older employees.

At a union paper where it's reverse seniority for layoffs, there is no effective way to surgically extract the dead weight, regardless of age. A 58-year-old goldbricker might not take a buyout if he's worried about getting hired elsewhere. A 32-year-old slacker might not take a buyout because it doesn't offer him enough weeks pay based on more modest years of service.

Still confused?

 

Sorry, the idea behind getting rid of older employees is not to get rid of dead wood or dead weight or whatever you want to call it. It's to save money. Older employees generally make more than younger ones because they've been around for more annual raises. Want to cut costs? Fire old, hire young.

And I'd say there's probably just as much dead wood/weight among the younger set as among the older group.

 

Agree, Joe. But there also is a prevalent "value" among the bosses at many places that young voices are the way to reach the non-newspaper-reading 18-to-34 year olds (redundant, I know), so getting rid of oldsters who allegedly have nothing worthwhile to say anymore or only say it to a dying audience is a worthwhile pursuit regardless of their salaries.

The "perfect" newsroom staff would be filled only with people under age 40, making entry level wages for that particular market. If you buy this tripe.

And I was just parroting the "dead weight" phrase offered up by a previous poster.

 

The idea of seasoned journalists being dead weight is silly.

Not true at my paper. Our most productive news-side reporter is semi retired. He's at least 60. He schools the younguns.

 

The best writer at my paper is over 60. He still produces tons of copy and breaks news all the time... We're all in awe of him... We have two other reporters who are over 60 and if either writes more than five stories a month it would be a miracle. Usually, all of those stories are sidebars.

No one is suggesting that either is lazy, they're just old, burned out and are making too much money to retire

 

Time for Sy Hersh to hang it up, I guess.

 

55 to 60 fulltime employees to take JS buyouts:

http://www.jsonline.com/watch/?watch=1&date=11/7/2007&id=31532

 

was sports hit? if so, how bad?
and did they ever fill the opening the had?