Denver Post offers buyouts

[SEeditor]

The Denver Post just announced that it is offering buyouts to employee with 10 or more years of experience. It is looking to get 20 buyouts, so that it can save $1.5 million. There is a 45-day window for the buyouts, putting it around July 20, give or take. No word on what will happen if it doesn't get the 20 it is looking for. Staff was told during a 3 p.m. meeting. Twitter reports filing out as we speak.

 

[SEeditor]

The Post has 165 newsroom employees with 66 (1o ore more years of experience) eligible for the buyout.

 

[Matt Stephens]

 

[LongTimeListener]

What kind of buyout?

2 or 3 weeks per year for someone who has been there 10 or 20 years could be pretty good. That's standard around the country, but I don't know if that's what's on the table here.

 

[SEeditor]

Just ugh. My heart just hurt to see this.

 

[SEeditor]

For those with 20 or more years: 2 weeks per years of service plus extra if over the age of 55 with a cap of 52 weeks.

For those 10-19 years: It is a six-month cap.

 

[LongTimeListener]

Kind of sucks if you've been there somewhere between 14 and 19 years and can't get full value. Other than that, not a bad deal. A 20+ year vet has to consider it, knowing that by declining it you'd be working the next year for free; the others would be working the next six months for free.

What happens after that is the big question, of course.

 

[Fredrick]

I don't understand the last post. That if you decline a 20 year veteran would work a year for free. Are you saying he/she would be laid off if they decline?

 

[Riptide]

A fine rant and a good column that could run almost anywhere in America today ...

But here's the most important thing. What most of you really don't realize is that the Denver Post is not a single thing, but a sum of its parts. And it's made up of some of the most ethical, talented, hard-working and determined journalists in the business. THEY are the Denver Post, and they're liberal, conservative, none and all of the above. Slam journalism all you want — it's really OK. We get it. It comes with the job. We hear you. And despite what you think, we react to criticism and praise because that's who we are — without a real working press, you would be living in a place like Russia or Iran. No kidding. No freaking kidding. Sneer all you want, what we do is that vital, because almost all of you don't have the time, the interest nor the ability to ferret out mundane crap and deep shirt alike. And if you think you'll get the straight story straight from the horses' asses in government, at Monsanto, at Chrysler, at Blue Bell, you are oh, oh, oh so very wrong. And if you think TV news has the ability to pick up the slack, you are even more wrong.

PERRY: The Denver Post stumbles, but sneering will land you on your own face - Aurora Sentinel

 

[DanOregon]

A lot of places are getting hit as corporate marching orders are being sent down the line.

 

[LongTimeListener]

I don't understand the last post. That if you decline a 20 year veteran would work a year for free. Are you saying he/she would be laid off if they decline?

No, I'm saying that a 20-year veteran -- or whatever number is the precise number depending on age and length of service, whether it's 20 or 23 or 26 years -- is going to receive the same amount of money through July 2016 by taking the buyout as he or she is by continuing to work. Not a penny more for working. Probably less in fact, because one feature of these buyouts is that they are typically classified as layoffs, thus the employee receives full unemployment benefits.

If a person takes the buyout and then finds a job that pays three-quarters of what a newspaper salary does, over the next two years that person would be 25 percent ahead of where he/she would have been by staying at the paper. It would take four years of no raises at the new job to fall behind where you'd have been at the newspaper.

 

[LanceyHoward]

No, I'm saying that a 20-year veteran -- or whatever number is the precise number depending on age and length of service, whether it's 20 or 23 or 26 years -- is going to receive the same amount of money through July 2016 by taking the buyout as he or she is by continuing to work. Not a penny more for working. Probably less in fact, because one feature of these buyouts is that they are typically classified as layoffs, thus the employee receives full unemployment benefits.

If a person takes the buyout and then finds a job that pays three-quarters of what a newspaper salary does, over the next two years that person would be 25 percent ahead of where he/she would have been by staying at the paper. It would take four years of no raises at the new job to fall behind where you'd have been at the newspaper.

I understand the arithmetic. But how may senior Denver Post employees would find a job at 75% of thier current pay. I think very few.