Gannett paper: you have to reapply for your job, and while you're at it ...

[Baron Scicluna]

Attend a meeting and sign a pledge card to the United Way. Nice job, Montgomery Advertiser publisher. You win Corporate Boob of the Day:

http://jimromenesko.com/2014/10/23/yes-you-might-lose-your-job-but-how-about-giving-some-money-to-united-way/

Unionize, good people of Montgomery. Unionize.

 

[LongTimeListener]

You should see a psychiatrist. This obsession is unhealthy.

 

[Baron Scicluna]

I'm not the one who is providing the material for these posts. The material speaks for itself. I just post it.

 

[joe]

**** the United Way and the heavy-handed tactics employers use to "encourage" people to give.

 

[MTM]

Worked at a place when the publisher wanted 100 percent participation, even if that meant a one-time donation. There was a drawing for a gift card among all who donated.

One reporter, who made very little money and had a young child, borrowed $1, made the one-time donation and won the drawing.

 

[playthrough]

I worked in a Gannett shop for a brief time way back when (back when Gannett was mildly disliked, not despised) and the heavy-handed United Way stuff was alive and well. Each department head was responsible for getting their staffs to give and the dept. head with the fewest donations got a considerable amount of grief.

 

[Moderator1]

Media General, at least in Richmond, used to do a big United Way push as well. There was a bit of pressure on us to donate. Our long-time SE said, quite loudly, "I'll choose my own charities, thank you, and I won't suggest to my staff that they do anything different."

Is it any wonder we loved the guy?

 

[Football_Bat]

We had one of those United Way "drives" at my paper about four or five years ago. I took the paperwork, threw it in the trash and never heard another word about it.

Publishers have some nerve dunning their serfs.

 

[BDC99]

Media General, at least in Richmond, used to do a big United Way push as well. There was a bit of pressure on us to donate. Our long-time SE said, quite loudly, "I'll choose my own charities, thank you, and I won't suggest to my staff that they do anything different."

Is it any wonder we loved the guy?

Good for him.

One reporter, who made very little money and had a young child, borrowed $1, made the one-time donation and won the drawing.

And good for him/her.

I worked for MG as well, and I didn't pledge to UW in part because of the pressure. Which is a shame for the United Way. I'll donate to who I choose to donate to, thanks.

 

[Doc Holliday]

I've never understood the drives and the pressure from publishers and management to give to United Way, especially when most of us make about 1/5 what they do.

I do understand that United Way is one of the most crooked, corrupt charities you can give to and it's been that way for a good 50-60 years.

My newspaper has pushed this **** on us for a decade or more. Once a year, we get a memo, a pledge card or some bull**** flyer asking/suggesting that we donate. I just toss it in the trash.

About eight years ago, my publisher even asked why I won't give and I told him the truth. My family had a bad experience with United Way and they'll never see a nickel of my money. That's all I told him. I still get the pledge cards and memos, but I haven't been personally asked to give since.

For the record, I'm happy to donate a few bucks to the Humane Society when they pass that stuff out. But the United Way ain't getting **** from me.

 

[Human_Paraquat]

It's not just Montgomery -- pretty sure this is Gannett-wide. (We got the forms at my shop, too.) I got them a decade ago when I worked in Tribune Co. as well. There was a huge push for 100 percent return of forms, even if you weren't donating.

Still haven't filled out my first one.

 

[Investigator Gary]

What is the relationship between newspapers and the United Way? Every paper I've worked at has collected money for them.

 

[HackyMcHack]

Anyone have to watch a United Way video as part of the process? Had to do that at a couple of places. And those videos were AWFUL.

 

[BurnsWhenIPee]

From the places I've worked, it's been pretty common for the publisher/ME to be on the board for the United Way, or at least very chummy with their board members. So it's been an embarrassment for them to not have 100 percent participation and a bunch of money donated from their workforce.

And I'm fine with them being embarrassed by that. At my last stop, the ME stopped by my desk to ask about my pledge card, which I had thrown away immediately. He started his spiel about how only $1 or $5 a week could make a difference, etc., and I said loudly, "That's a great point. Let's do it this way - you can take 100 percent of the raise I received this year off the top and donate that to the United Way. Deal?"

We were in a wage freeze that year, so everyone in the newsroom received a big zero. He didn't like that answer, but everyone within earshot had a real good reaction to it right away.

 

[BDC99]

Anyone have to watch a United Way video as part of the process? Had to do that at a couple of places. And those videos were AWFUL.

Yep. A couple of times. The whole thing is an embarrassment, and it makes the UW look bad, IMO.

 

[Baron Scicluna]

I guess in a way that I was lucky that I was never coerced. My Gannett shop would do incentives like extra days off or gift certificates. But they would still nag by having the meetings, and sending out email after email "reminding" us that the drive was going on.

I guess this story, beyond it being Gannett, just struck me as utterly preposterous. I know it's "right" to work Alabama, but it strikes me as being flat-out coercion that a business announces layoffs and then tells employees to give to the charity of the business' choice.

 

[Johnny Dangerously]

There was a huge push for 100 percent return of forms, even if you weren't donating.

The reason for the huge push is, I suspect, so the paper could claim "100 percent participation" in the drive.

At one of my stops, I didn't donate for five consecutive years. At the end of that stretch, the paper boasted of its 10th or 11th straight year of 100 percent participation. I asked someone who worked next door to the publisher, and she said, "If you fill out your form, you participate."

I suspect that was true at the other places I worked that claimed 100 percent participation despite me knowing full well there wasn't 100 percent donation. Thing is, a newspaper wouldn't let a company or agency it covers get away with that kind of fudging to look good, but then again, newspapers do hypocrisy and double standards pretty damn well.

 

[PaperDoll]

I don't recall my Gannett outposts mentioning donating to the United Way. However, one of my former news-side colleagues is now a PR person for the local United Way branch. Maybe Sports was immune from the pitches?

When Gannett offered to match employees' charitable contributions, I gave to the max the company offered. Same for contributions in recognition of volunteer hours. That program seems to have quietly disappeared.

 

[RecoveringJournalist]

I worked in a Gannett shop for a brief time way back when (back when Gannett was mildly disliked, not despised) and the heavy-handed United Way stuff was alive and well. Each department head was responsible for getting their staffs to give and the dept. head with the fewest donations got a considerable amount of grief.

There has never been a point where Gannett was only mildly disliked, unless you were at the Mother ship.

 

[RecoveringJournalist]

Ay my last stop you were encouraged to give a day's pay. They acted like that was the standard donation.