Boston Globe is not cutting jobs, but wants to cut pay 10%

You want to live in Boston, at 72K?

Not me.

 

Pay cuts suck regardless. It's not like we're wiping our asses with Benjamins in the business.

 

I'm not sure which point to hammer home more, here: 1. If you think $72K in Boston is a great wage, you must not have been there recently; 2. They've already shoved a good deal of the people who had been making $80K out the door, and replaced them with people earning considerably less.

 

I agree completely with those who say this is a hit no matter where you stand in the business.

I'm buried in consumer debt, and trying to do a lot better. I make good money -- but a 10 percent cut right now would be a disaster -- the only saving grace would be the existence of more credit. Not a great thing.

As somebody already said -- people have lives built around what they make and can expect to make in the next few years. Cutting that 10 percent is not easily absorbed.

 

10 percent is a huge hit regardless... It's still better than a 100 percent hit...

 

Exactamundo. Either you want to maintain a job in this business that isn't threatened every other week by more layoffs/buyouts, doesn't require you to do a fallen colleague's duties in addition to yours and doesn't have you walking on eggshells in hopes that the other guy will get whacked instead of you . . . or you don't. A 10 percent cut in exchange for a three-year pledge of no job losses seems better than some folks getting pushed out entirely and others getting overworked and stressed by the next threatened downsizing.

 

1. I sincerely doubt any but a very small minority of Globe editorial staff make $80K a year, unless they all got raises in the three years I've been out of the racket.
2. I even more sincerely doubt that the Globe would make any sort of written no-layoffs pledge that could be legally enforceable.

 

Taking a paycut hasn't helped the airline pilots in the long term.

 

You all know, of course, that management will cut the wage rate, AND they will lay off additional staff.

Whatever "promises" they make to maintain staffing levels will go out the window very shortly.

 

Let's see, they're gonna ask for a 10 percent pay reduction so they can still make their 20 percent profit margin?? Geez, that seems really fair. "In order for our ownership to continue to afford their yacht upgrades, we are implementing a 10 percent salary cut."

And what would happen if I said: "OK, let's figure in the 6 percent raise I didn't get last year and the 4 percent raise I'm not getting this year. That's 10 percent. Call it even."

 

Just one note, and I wish I could say it on more than this thread.

I'm not defending any of the idiotic management practices in the past few years in the business, but I'd be surpirsed if anybody is currently still chasing 20 percent profit margins.

I highly doubt Tribune is; given their debt, they're just trying to make it into late 2009.

I could be wrong, but I'd be surprised if I was.

 

Basically, SF, you're saying it's no longer about greed ... it's about mismanagement?