Oregonian up next

[silvercharm]

Rumor has it that Tuesday the Oregonian will be offering buyouts to many people in the newsroom and its plant. 50 must go in the newsroom, 100 company wide. As to the offer, many rumors...from a year to two years salary, plus some medical.

 

[slappy4428]

Rumor has it that Tuesday the Oregonian will be offering buyouts to many people in the newsroom and its plant. 50 must go in the newsroom, 100 company wide. As to the offer, many rumors...from a year to two years salary, plus some medical.

Must go? Is it a union shop because Newhouse doesn't do "must go's" to non-union, although everything is in flux nowadays.

 

[silvercharm]

Not a union shop.

 

[luckyducky]

Yikes...have a few buddies from college working there and have sent out messages. I hope at least some, if not all, of them make it through unscathed if/when it happens. Good luck to the rest of the Oregonian and Newhouse gangs, too.

 

[SportySpice]

God, the way things have been going this year, it might be easier just to start threads of the shops that have not or will not have layoffs/buyouts. *sigh*

 

[Write-brained]

God, the way things have been going this year, it might be easier just to start threads of the shops that have not or will not have layoffs/buyouts. *sigh*

Maybe we are but we just haven't found one yet.

 

[micropolitan guy]

Oregonian offers two years of pay and two years full benefits to employees of 10 years or more in its buyout offer. Benefits for dependents as well. Very generous package, they must mean business.

 

[MU_was_not_so_hard]

Oregonian offers two years of pay and two years full benefits to employees of 10 years or more in its buyout offer.

Not too shabby as far as getting a buyout.

 

[silvercharm]

More info here, complete with internal documents.

http://wweek.com/wwire/?p=12855

 

[deskslave]

In evaluating your response to the buy-out offer, you may want to discuss the situation with members of your immediate family.

No ****, jackass. Thanks for the permission.

 

[spnited]

Newark ... Cleveland .... Portland.

Think about this. This is the Newhouse family, once described to me by a long-time Star-Ledger employee as "The Newhouse family doesn't throw out old furniture."
This is not greedy corprations looking for 24% profit margins. This is -- I believe -- the largest, and until recently very stable, family-owned media group in the country.
This is far more disturbing to me than Gannett or the Trib or McClatchy or anyone else cutting people.

 

[whatwoulddamondo?]

anyone have a feel for what type of margins their papers generally operate with?

 

[DemoChristian]

Mine is still up around 25 percent but we're getting crunched (no buyouts or layoffs yet, thank God).

 

[Joe Williams]

Two years plus two years of medical? Cripes!

To me, it would be nearly impossible to turn that down. If you stayed, it would feel like working for free for the next two years, with no assurance you'd still be around till then (or after that) -- hell, no assurance you'll even be alive two years out!

Two-plus-two trumps about everything else we've heard of, right? And the incredible part is, you don't have to be a 30-year vet or on the brink of retirement to get the max. If you're approved, you can parlay 10 years of service into 104 weeks of severance.

I think the Oregonian has just made it tougher for all other papers to buy out their troops, because other deals are going to look relatively chintzy.

 

[silvercharm]

I'm trying to figure how this pencils out. Many of the vets at the Oregonian are making in the 75-80K range. With medical, it's going to cost between $150-200K to buy out each employee. For 100, that's roughly $17-20 million.

Somebody is going without a bonus this year, that's for sure.

 

[CNY]

Two years plus two years of medical? Cripes!

The interesting thing is, it's not as good as The O's buyout offer from last year.

 

[MMatt60]

I would think people will be stampeding HR to sign up for this. Especially underappreciated copy editors with lousy hours. (Are they eligible?)

 

[EStreetJoe]

I would think people will be stampeding HR to sign up for this. Especially underappreciated copy editors with lousy hours. (Are they eligible?)

Only the employees who have been there 10+ years are eligible for the buyout.
If they're like other Newhouse papers, where the vast majority of the newsroom stays around forever, there will be a long line at HR

 

[EStreetJoe]

Newark ... Trenton .... Cleveland .... Portland.

Fixed

Think about this. This is the Newhouse family, once described to me by a long-time Star-Ledger employee as "The Newhouse family doesn't throw out old furniture."
This is not greedy corprations looking for 24% profit margins. This is -- I believe -- the largest, and until recently very stable, family-owned media group in the country.
This is far more disturbing to me than Gannett or the Trib or McClatchy or anyone else cutting people.

Advance/Newhouse is probably getting tired of the shell game of shifting profits from one enterprise to cover losses at another. Don't know how well their websites are doing as the Advance philosophy is 'portal sites' instead of name-brand sites (eg: nj.com instead of StarLedger.com; nj.com instead of TrentonTimes.com; Cleveland.com instead clevelandplaindealer.com, etc.)

 

[Joe Williams]

Newark ... Trenton .... Cleveland .... Portland.

Fixed

Think about this. This is the Newhouse family, once described to me by a long-time Star-Ledger employee as "The Newhouse family doesn't throw out old furniture."
This is not greedy corprations looking for 24% profit margins. This is -- I believe -- the largest, and until recently very stable, family-owned media group in the country.
This is far more disturbing to me than Gannett or the Trib or McClatchy or anyone else cutting people.

Advance/Newhouse is probably getting tired of the shell game of shifting profits from one enterprise to cover losses at another. Don't know how well their websites are doing as the Advance philosophy is 'portal sites' instead of name-brand sites (eg: nj.com instead of StarLedger.com; nj.com instead of TrentonTimes.com; Cleveland.com instead clevelandplaindealer.com, etc.)

Yeah, why the hell do places do that? I never got it. Another joint like that, the Chicago Tribune, seemed to have its sports content on some sight entirely separate from the rest of the newspaper's content. I thought that really was dumb. Never made a clear association between the provider and the content. Uh ... take that, Zell!