PD story on Beacon's
buyouts-or-layoffs strategy

BY JOHN OLESKY (BJ 1969-96)

This is an Associated Press story in the Plain Dealer on the buyouts/layoffs planned by BJ management.

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The union representing reporters and other newsroom staff at the Akron Beacon Journal said the newspaper announced a buyout offer Wednesday aimed at avoiding layoffs, according to a union official.

The company is requesting that up to five full-time union newsroom staff take buyouts, said Rollie Dreussi, executive secretary of the Northeast Ohio Newspaper Guild, Local 1. Beacon Journal officials have said the company would issue a layoff notice next week, he said. 

The contract requires a 60-day layoff notice. Company officials have told the union that the newspaper would rescind the layoff notice if enough union members volunteered for the buyouts. Buyouts are being extended to full-time reporters, photographers, copy editors and designers.

"We're sorry to see a reduction in our workforce at the Beacon Journal, but we're happy they are trying to do it through a buyout with severance pay as opposed to a strict layoff," Dreussi said.

The Plain Dealer has attempted to contact Akron Beacon Journal Publisher Mark Cohen and Vice President and Editor Bruce Winges, who have not yet responded.

Dreussi said Guild members were being informed about the buyouts at meetings Wednesday morning and afternoon. The buyout includes 54 weeks of severance pay regardless of an employee's tenure.

According to Guild records, Dreussi said prior to the first round of layoffs at the Beacon Journal in 2001, the bargaining unit had 197 full and part-time members. That number is now about 75.

My source at the BJ put the bargaining unit number at 68 several weeks ago. 

The BJ laid off 25% of its newsroom staff -- more than 40 people -- in 2006. In 2008 the BJ lost about 350 combined years of experience in one day. 

The math taught to me at Monongah (WV) High School by Mary Turkovich tells me that the BJ has gone from more than 160 to, after the next cut, barely more than 60.

That's about a 63% reduction in staff. Those left at the BJ, as talented as they are, can hardly be expected to provide the same output as they did with the 100 departed brethren. 

Sadly, this is not limited to the BJ. It is a national phenonemon because newspaper owners did not get out in front of the Internet explosion while it was a pilot light and become an inextricable, viable part of it. 

Clinging to what worked for centuries cost newspapers their place at the forefront of news-gathering. 

Democracy is the biggest loser in this because there are fewer watchdogs to keep the politicians and businesses honest.

I have offered to publish verbatim any response by BJ management. There has been no reply by BJ management. The offer still stands.