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http://www.dailygazette.com[quote][/quote] Times Union planning to offer buyout packages
BY JAMES SCHLETT Gazette Reporter
Citing a tougher economic climate and competition for revenues, Albany Times Union management on Monday unveiled a plan to trim the paper’s work force by 30 employees.
Times Union Publisher Mark Aldam notified employees at the Capital Region’s largest daily newspaper via e-mail about the proposed buyout packages. The voluntary buyouts would cover 7 percent of the company’s work force, said Tim O’Brien, a Times Union reporter who heads the union that represents 260 workers at the newspaper.
The buyouts are open to all of the newspaper’s employees, including supervisors. Employees have 30 days to accept the offer. The company employs approximately 500, said O’Brien, president of the Newspaper Guild of Albany Local 31034.
Newspaper Guild members need to ratify the buyout offer and will vote on it Thursday. The union’s executive board is recommending the approval of the proposal.
“We don’t like to see jobs cut. Voluntary buyouts are much preferred to people getting laid off,” O’Brien said.
The staff reduction, Aldam said in a blog posting on the Times Union’s Web site, is a necessary part of the newspaper’s transition to a multimedia news source during an economic downturn. He held open the possibility of layoffs and firings if not enough people take the buyout, saying, “The goal of the program is to reduce full-time staffing by at least 30 positions. If we do not achieve the targeted staff reductions through this action, involuntary job eliminations or layoffs may be necessary.”
The Times Union, much like newspapers across the country, has been struggling with its shift to the Internet and declining readership.
During the six-month period ending March 31, the Times Union’s weekday circulation shrank by 3.3 percent to 89,256 compared with a year earlier. But it also posted one of the region’s only gains for that period, with its Sunday circulation rising by 118 subscribers to 141,064, according to the Audit Bureau of Circulations.
The newspaper has spent recent years strengthening its Web site. In March, parent Hearst Corp. announced plans to give the Times Union’s print edition a boost with a $60 million expansion project. Hearst said it will fit the newspaper’s Albany-Shaker Road headquarters with a new printing press and a 70,000-square-foot addition. |
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