NEW YORK: Next to feel the knife in the current round of Tribune Co. job cuts -- which in recent days have already hit papers in Chicago, Los Angeles, Baltimore, Orlando and Hartford -- will be Newsday in Melville, N.Y.
A memo written Friday by Publisher Timothy P. Knight and posted today at the Romenesko Web site at www.poynter.org saves the worst for last, revealing that "as we move through the process of re-organizing ourselves to meet our goals, we need to make very difficult decisions about how we allocate resources. This includes making staff reductions in union and non-union areas. We will be finalizing these decisions over the next two weeks, and plan to talk to the people who will be losing their jobs promptly as the decisions are made.
"The timing of this is unfortunate but unavoidable. I understand your concerns and I thank you for your patience as we work through this process."
Under the contract, Newsday has to offer union employees buyouts.
Representatives of the Graphics Communications International Union of Teamsters, Local 406, said they don’t know how many employees or what departments the cuts will hit. "As Tim Knight says in the memo, this is unfortunate and we certainly agree," Fred Bruning, a spokesman for Local 406 and a former Newsday employee who took a buyout in June 2004, told E&P Monday.
A spokeswoman for Newsday had no comment.
Meanwhile, Local 406 representatives have been in negotiations over the 2006 contract during the past few weeks. Newsday is said to be looking to reduce staff in the pressroom unit and the transportation unit by dozens. Representatives believe Knight’s memo refers to additional cuts.
There are six units at Newsday that are protected under the union: editorial, pressroom, transportation, plate manufacturing, electronic press, and building maintenance.
Publisher Knight's memo opened by setting out "some examples of what we’ve accomplished this year." Here is the rest of the memo:
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--We decided to concentrate the bulk of our resources on our core coverage areas of Nassau, Suffolk and Queens, which required changes to our New York City staffing.
--We invested in our home delivery circulation, which is most valuable to advertisers.
--We’re using the strengths of our product portfolio Newsday, Newsday Interactive, Star, Island, amNewYork, Hoy -- to create new products that are valued by both readers and advertisers.
--Following your feedback in the Employee Survey, we launched new internal communication channels, trained managers in communication and upgraded management meetings to help managers share information with employees.
We continue to emphasize the strong local reporting that only we can offer Long Island readers. You are seeing it this week in the investigative series "Fire Alarm." Even more important is that we have combined print and web resources to create an innovative, multi-media experience for this series.
However, as we move through the process of re-organizing ourselves to meet our goals, we need to make very difficult decisions about how we allocate resources. This includes making staff reductions in union and non-union areas. We will be finalizing these decisions over the next two weeks, and plan to talk to the people who will be losing their jobs promptly as the decisions are made.
The timing of this is unfortunate but unavoidable. I understand your concerns and I thank you for your patience as we work through this process.
Sincerely,
Tim
