In an effort to cut costs, The Plain Dealer is offering lucrative buyout packages to newsroom and business office employees.
All of the newsroom's 370 employees and an undisclosed number of business office employees received letters Friday outlining buyout packages that would provide severance pay, health care coverage, retirement benefits and outplacement services.
Like most of the nation's 1,400 daily newspapers, The Plain Dealer has been dealing for several years with declining advertising revenue and circulation.
In addition to management-level editors, the newsroom has about 300 reporters, editors, photographers and support staff who are members of the Northeast Ohio Newspaper Guild.
About 65 of its members are eligible for the company's most lucrative buyout package.
Click on the headline above for more details.
Clicking on the headline only took me to the home page of the PD. I had to do a keyword search to get the article. Use this URL to get to the article itself:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.cleveland.com/search/index.ssf?/base/business/1155371451275120.xml?bxbiz&coll=2&thispage=1
The most interesting part, to me, was this:
"Employees who are 50 or older with at least 20 years' service as of Dec. 31 could receive 2½ years' pay and health care coverage. Other employees could receive two weeks' pay and health care for every full year of service."
So, after 2 1/2 years, then what? Other employees would get even less. It sounds like this would work for those who are 62 1/2 years old so that, in effect, they get paid and have health care till they're 65 and ready for Medicare, which leaves a 20% gap in most medical bills for the employee/retiree to pay.