Seattle Times to cut jobs, reduce paper size
By Leah McBride Mensching, Wednesday 9 January 2008 at 23:10 :: Labor & Employment :: #1081 :: rss
The Seattle Times Co. will lay off 17 non-newsroom employees at its flagship newspaper, the Seattle Times, and cut another 69 jobs through attrition, claiming it will save about $21 million, the newspaper announced Wednesday.
Vice President Jill Mackie said the Times will also reduce the newspaper's width by 1 inch in 2009 to save on newsprint, consolidate some weekday and Sunday features sections and stop publication of a Sunday tabloid news section for Southeast King County readers, which was launched in spring 2007.
Of the 69 jobs to be cut through attrition, 55 are already unfilled. All but one of the 17 employees to be laid off work in the paper's circulation department, and seven will be let go in February, while the rest will have their jobs until July, Mackie said, according to the Times.
Liz Brown, administrative officer of the Pacific Northwest Newspaper Guild, which represents most of the affected workers, told the Times that in addition to the lay-offs, an executive had told her that 18 part-time circulation field assistants will have their weekly hours reduced to 19 a week. This means the assistants, who deliver missed papers to subscribers, will be made ineligible for health insurance.
Mackie would not confirm that statement, but said that a number of staffers across the company would have their hours reduced.
The company and union will meet to discuss severance benefits, Brown and Mackie said. So far, no job cuts are scheduled in the newsroom.
“The fact The Times is not slashing its news work force shows its strong commitment to journalism,” Brown stated in a blog posting, according to the paper. “Compared with what is happening at metro newspapers around the country, the news (Tuesday) could have been much worse.”
In addition to Tuesday's announcements, the Times has also said it will outsource trucking operations and vehicle maintenance, cutting up to 80 company jobs.
Newspapers across the United States are cutting budgets and staff due to declining revenues.
The bad news comes just a couple weeks after Publisher Frank Blethen wrote in what the newspaper described as “an unusually blunt internal memo,” that the publication is facing its “most difficult and painful downsizing” in history, the result of print revenue losses that are expected to reach $33 million for 2007 and 2008.
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