Landmark follows Gannett's lead: Furloughs

So does this mean that sports journalists can go to their bosses and offer themselves out as freelancers...or must their remain in the exclusive employ of the specific paper, as may be agreed to?

Sure, I'll take an unpaid day off here or there -- but don't get mad at me if I happen to try that unpaid day off and make it the Thursday of a high school state tournament and offer up my services to every little town in the state. Made $600 in one day doing that a few years back at a state HOCKEY tournament! (No papers wanted to staff it because it was 200+ miles from most of the cities)...

 

That sounds like a damn good idea, and I'm sure it will be frowned upon in our newsroom.

 

But...if you have exclusivity over your work and they "take away" some of your pay...hmmm.

Type to bring out the ol' 'secondary name' for the by-line: Phil Hucklewoods. As long as the name on the stringer check says the real name, right?

EDIT: Holy typos. Gotta quit doing meth and writing within 24 hours.

 

No, 5 percent.

20 work days in a month = 1 mandatory unpaid day off = 5 percent.

And oh yes, of course, it will become permanent.

 

I'm at a Gannett shop and I'd much rather take my furlough as a whole week than have to take a day off a month, because at least with a week off I'm getting a block of time I can do something with, even though I'm not getting paid. Much better to me than an extra day off here and there, when I might have to stay late the night before to finish a project, or come in early the day after to make up something I missed.

 

Hmm, I hadn't thought of that.

I guess I was just thinking of losing half a paycheck out of the blue. If that happened, there would be some bills that wouldn't get paid on time.

 

You can bet your ass your management-in-the-skybox people are busy renovating their office bathrooms to keep up with the financial firm CEOs with the money they're saving by smashing a few bees.

 

Plus if you take it all in a week, depending on the state, you can file for unemployment since it is a forced work stoppage not of your choosing

 

5 unpaid days/261 work days in a year

1.9 percent

 

If that's true then as a conservative I'll confess this is a good thing in terms of being the minority: the corporate kissass of our wing that was trying desperately to get the family leave knocked out would nip this loophole in the bud.

 

I mentioned this on the Gannett furlough thread, but this has been pretty common in the auto industry for the last few years. Our local Goodyear plant shut down for three weeks last year. And a company that makes filters or something like that had two furlough weeks last year. Didn't really phase anyone here at the paper. We had a story, but there was no backlash or anything. Obviously, it's a little different in our business where we still have a product that needs to come out every day.

 

Believe me, I would gladly take a 1.9 percent pay cut as opposed to a 100-percent pay cut.