SF Chronicle slashing staff, possibly closing

Do you recall, or could you estimate, what their revenue is? In other words, the lost $50 million out of what? I've not seen that anywhere.

 

STL: I have heard a working estimate of $150M in revenue. Not sure if that's entirely accurate, but that's the number their competitors guess.

 

Update:

http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1003948862

 

More and more, you get the feeling that media companies want to shut down their newspapers...

 

...in the absence of a plausible business plan that makes any fiscal sense.

Key question to be asked by anyone still working at a paper: How are you going to pay my salary?

 

So, 150 guaranteed cuts with the possibility of 250. Wow.

 

Actually, Ang, the story says up to 225, but the point's the same.

What sort of persuasion is this, though? You could vote for the givebacks and still wind up being among the 150 people whacked. It's "you win and we dump 225 of you" or "we win and we dump 150 of you." Only way you could feel good about working for that place going forward would be to convince yourself you were one of the 75 spared. At lower wages of course.

Wait, did I just suggest there was any way to feel good about working for that place? My apologies.

 

I would guess the way you feel good about it is that you are still employed. In today's economy, that is always something to be thankful for.

 

If the contract is accepted, the laid-off people get two weeks' pay per year of service, plus health care for the equivalent time. If the contracted is rejected, they get two weeks' pay -- that's total, not per year of service -- and the legally minimum amount of health care.

Terrible choices all, no question, and the next two years are going to be scary as hell trying to land a new job. But some folks could walk out of there with a six-figure package. In the absolute worst of times, that's not bad. And if the union believes the company's estimate of losses -- which, again, based on the union's own research, it would have to believe those numbers -- this is unfortunately not a bad deal at all. Look at what some people in other media companies aren't getting as they're escorted out.

 

You sort of lose your bargaining leverage as a union when the company itself is saying there's a good chance it will shut down completely soon.

 

My best guess is the company spent $50 million more than it made or had a profit return of $50 million less than planned.

Now a decrease in advertising is a huge part of this. But it doesn't help when newspapers are losing money and CEOs and management still get their bonuses for under-performing companies.