Walk-out in North Carolina

For those following Heartland Publications' takeover of southern newspapers, this was on the SNPA bulletin today. Heartlands fired numerous people from the paper a week or two ago, including the editor, and the publisher walked Monday. Nine other people walked with him.

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Ten Staff Members Leave Mount Airy News Following Sale
The Mount Airy (N.C.) News reports that 10 employees, including Publisher Mike Milligan, resigned their positions Monday evening.

The paper reports, "The resignations came one week after several employees were not rehired when the newspaper and affiliated publications were purchased by Heartland Publications LLC."

The article says: "According to Heartland, which acquired the News with the purchase of Mid-South Management Inc. on June 11, Milligan submitted his resignation effective at 5:30 p.m. Monday.

"Milligan's resignation was followed by a planned walkout of nine additional employees around 7 p.m. The employees included members of the news, advertising and composing departments."
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That's going to hit Aunt Bee hard.

10 employees is probably a huge chunk, if not a majority, of employees there.

 

Especially considering they're probably understaffed after all the layoffs.

 

SCEditor,
You know who this is. The same thing happened in Pickens. I used to work for Mid-South, as you know, and I heard that news of the sale did not go over well with some of their former employees. This is going to be interesting.

 

Must be nice to be able to afford to act on your principles.

 

When I first saw this thread and the words 'heartland' and 'North Carolina' I automatically started to wonder if it was the stop I worked at not too long ago -- but it was a different place.

All that said, Heartland seemed like a good company to work for when I was with one of its papers, but that may have been just me.

 

Must be nice not to work with you. That took guts, and you're trying to piss all over it. Sheesh ...

Good for the people in Mount Airy. When the publisher walks out with them, that's symbolism at its best.

Heartland may be able to replace everyone physically in time - obviously, no one's bigger than a publication - but a place Mount Airy's size, and Surry County as a whole, will figure it out and go with another publication.

Congratulations, Heartland ... you sure showed them. :

 

The scary thing: A co-worker of mine, who received the ax from Heartland at another publication, tells me that if Mt. Airy can produce a paper with the staff they've got left, he'd bet they don't fill any of the vacant positions.

In a related note, I just looked up Heartland's Web site. The guy that runs the company is a former VP of Operations for JRC. Why doesn't that surprise me?

 

Freedom's just another word for nothing left to lose. - Kris Kristofferson

 

Knowing what we know of Heartland, the company is probably arrogant enough to try to do just that. Want to bet none of the employees left will be offered raises?

Gee, from JRC to Heartland. Nah ... unpossible ...

 

I wish I had the guts of those 10. I salute them.

 

I never said it didn't take guts. Good for them, and I hope they land on their feet. I was only implying that for a lot of people, that wouldn't have been an option.