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

I cannot fucking believe that some of you are acting like the reporters potentially getting 10 percent of their paycheck cut are the enemies here. I'm sorry, but what the fuck?

These are supposed to be essentially reporters who have made it to the top 1 percentile of our profession, which makes them criminally underpaid to begin with, for the sake of the love of what they do. And they're being forced to take a 10 percent paycut, and some of their alleged journalistic brethren are sitting here and telling them to suck it up, they make more than enough (1/2, I remind you again, of a 25-year-old first-year corporate lawyer in the same city).

Christ, with friends like these ...

 

There's always the Internets for employment.

...I'm quite amazed by a few things in this thread. First and foremost, though, is that some folks are willing to write off 10 percent just because a person at the Globe may be making $70-80K. Now matter how you slice it, 10 percent is a big loss at the top of the scale as well as at the bottom.

Think of it like this, especially for those who have worked at papers since the money days (1990-2001) and have stuck with it to today:

--First you were feeling nice and cozy with your 2-4 percent annual union raise, plus every year or two the paper would throw you an extra bone through a performance/merit bonus of 5-10 percent. Pretty good ca-ching, right?

--So your hourly/annual salary has been climbing for a while and that nice merit bonus makes you feel extra warm and fuzzy. So you buy a bigger house/have a kid/whatever -- basically your lifestyle expands because your hard work is getting rewarded.

--Then the early 2000s hit. The company takes away merit raises, saying the ad and classified market has changed. It hurts, but at least you have the union raise, right?

--Oops. The union contract comes up a year or two later. And the company has thrown away the key to the vault.

--Now, you've gone more than half a decade without a merit raise -- though you continue to do award-winning work -- and that mandated union raise, well, it's gone because the company says no raises will save everybody's jobs.

--And now the company says, well, we want to make sure everyone keeps their job, so we need you to pay us 10 percent per year by taking a cut?

How does that sound?

I would say that would sting just a bit.

So, anyone who thinks you should just suck it up... Well, go screw yourself.

 

I would have been out the door as soon as I went a year without a merit raise (assuming I deserved one -- almost everyone should get at least 1%). No matter how cool it is to do what you love, there are dozens of industries that can't afford to treat intelligent, educated people like shit. Every time you lose a percentage in annual increases, you pay for it again every year you stay there, and possibly again when you move to a new one.

 

Um, I don't see in my post where I said I was miserable. Truth is, I've been pretty lucky in my journalism career. Sure the pay could be a little better, but I've had supportive bosses and colleagues and have been able to make my way in the business.

My point was, newspapers (not counting the afternoon dailies, which have all but died out) were making more money than they knew what to do with for a lot of years. Journalists were told that they shouldn't get a larger share of those profits because they should be loving the work that they did and that 100 people would trade places for them in a heartbeat. Fine. Thousands of people have worked very long hours, for relatively little pay.

Now, one of the largest papers in the country is telling their employees that not only do they need to forego the relatively low pay (compared to other industries), but that they need to take a pay cut in order for the whole company to survive.

I understand the feelings of people on here who would gladly take a paycut in order to preserve jobs. However, those who would be losing money should have some sort of guarantee that their sacrifice will pay off. Why should a Boston Globe journalist have to sacrifice $8,000 a year if they aren't guaranteed to keep their job one year later?

 

If this is true, than everyone at the Globe needs to realize that they've pretty much maxed out their earning potential. And that's a pretty scary thing. Prices are increasing across the board, and you're having your salary slashed. Not good.

Sometimes I wonder if three years from now I'll look back and think: You knew this was coming, WHY DIDNT YOU GET OUT!!

One last thing: I was talking to a college student who freelances for us the other day. I asked him about his decision to go into newspapers following graduation next summer.

Him: Well, college students feel pretty lucky because with all the buyouts, the big papers are hiring us right out of college. It's cool because we dont have to worry about working our way up.

Me: So what happens 10 years from now?

Him: What do you mean?

Me: You're still making 40K with little hope to make more money.

Him: I havent really thought about that.

 

The idea that this guy still will be employed, 10 years from now in this death-spiraling industry, is one heck of a presumption.

And never mind his 40K -- what about when he turns 40 years old and has the buyout/layoff target painted on his back?

 

My answer to that is that 1. I can get by on $40,000 a year just fine, and 2. If I'm making $40,000 a year coming out of school, I'm going to have a good portion of it saved up each year. There is little to no chance I spend even close to all of that.

 

I'm presuming you have no interest in having a family.

And you'd better plan on saving it, because in the scenario that silentbob describes, that savings you're putting away now will be filling your gas tank in 2013. Which brings you back to 2020 needing a plan.

Just saying that $40K looks like a lot of money now. Ten years, three kids and a house later, it's not gonna be.

 

What is this 'big papers hiring thing' that we're talking about?

 

. . . or in residing in a major metro area.

 

Are you joking me? $40,000 K -- ten years from now no less? As someone said -- do you plan on having a family?

 

Yeah, exactly my thought, too. When I was coming out of school about 8 years ago, I thought $35k was a lot of money, and for my needs at the time, it was. I had a roommate, drove a hand-me-down, and didn't have a ton of college loans. It felt like I had a ton of disposable income, and I did have a good chunk saved up. Eight years later, I'm making something in the 40s range, and I can definitely use at least another 10k, what with a mortgage payment, likely need for a new car in a few years, and looking at perhaps having kids in a couple years. With living expenses rising the way they are, I'm eagerly awaiting the day my wife finishes grad school so we can have two incomes in the house.