Detroit newspaper employees agree to wage cuts

With Lou Mleczko in charge? He's got the spine of Jello and is twice as bland.

 

Why should he get a bonus for, in effect, doing his job?

If the company is in such dire straits that they can't afford to pay their workers what they had previously been paid, then they shouldn't be able to afford the bonuses. Yet, magically somehow, they can.

To use a football metaphor, it's great if you have a star quarterback and star running back. But you need a good offensive line as well. Many of these greedy corporations are forgetting that.

 

1. As I have stated many times, "bonus" is a lightning-rod word around here that doesn't carry the same meaning in the corporate world. For these people, the "bonus" is pretty much their salary. You are arguing that a person who did his job so well that he brought an additional $2 million to the company should not be paid, in effect, his $500K salary.

2. Because if he leaves, the person who replaces him may not be able to bring in that $2 million. And with a sudden $2 million drop in reveune, guess what's coming next?

 

A number of police/fire/etc. unions around the country have taken similar across-the-board wage cuts of their own volition in order to avoid the laying off of X number of people due to the quantified reduction in municipal budgets.

It's a little trickier in this situation, since we know Gannett didn't tell the union, we have $Y million to pay all of you, so we can either lay off Z number of you or you can work it out amongst yourselves in pay reductions. Hence the apprehension of many here as to whether the guild got screwed or not.

I do think a union is better off looking out for all its members than preserving the highest possible wages etc. for the number that don't get fired.

Can any of us argue that the open-market value of the average major-metro print journalist HAS probably declined by 4.5-6.5 percent or more since the last contract?

This is terrible, depressing news, but I can understand why the guild agreed to it. Sometimes it's better to play it safe when you have so little leverage.

 

If your boss comes to you and says, "you can take a 4.5 percent pay cut, or there is a 1 in 3 chance you'll be let go."

What do you do?

I'd take the cut.

 

You really think the only cuts are autoworkers or older workers?

From your very narrow perspective, it could look like that. But that is very far from the truth. And the stats back me up on that.

 

My cousin, in his early 30s, works on the line at Ford and has lost his job for extended periods of time over the past couple years. He does fine when he's working, but when he's not ...

It's definitely not happening only to 50-somethings.

 

Problem is, in Gannett's scenario, the guy already is getting his $500K in salary, and is getting rewarded with another $500K in bonuses, even though he's not bringing in that $2 million contract.

I would perfectly understand it if the company was making a ton of money, and paying their workers good wages. And I would understand having workers take a paycut if the company was on the verge of faltering.

But if the company is on the verge of faltering, then maybe the people at the top ought to be told, "You want a bonus in spite of doing a shitty job? Go find another sucker." Unfortunantly, that's not happening. They're getting their bonuses, while the workers are getting peed on.

 

Makes our three-year (and counting) wage freeze seem not so bad.

 

Eh, it depends on multiple factors. If you continously let people grind you into the ground, that's what will happen.

 

True. But as a journalist, you take that cut.

 

But this is after how many rounds of layoffs and isn't this the second pay cut? At what point do you just say forget it?