Seattle Times Workers Asked To Take Unpaid Week Off

 

SEATTLE, WA (December 22, 2008) – In the face of continuing financial problems at The Seattle Times, managers and some non-union workers have been asked to help the company by taking a week off without pay sometime in the next two months.

Over the past year the Times has cut more than 500 jobs in three rounds of layoffs and buyouts, the managers have warned that more job cuts are coming after New Years, and unions have been told they'll have to make concessions after January 1.

Those who are being asked to take time off without pay include editors and department managers, finance and administrative staff, and employees of the newspaper's Web site, a spokesperson for the Times said.

A business journal in the northwest estimated that the request for a week off without pay will involved about 500 Times employees. A spokesperson for the Times says the company does not have a figure for how much money the plan will save the newspaper.

In a meeting at the paper on Friday, executive editor David Boardman told editors that they can take off the week without pay all at once, in multiple-day blocks, or one day at a time, but that they must do it by the end of February.

The newspaper is owned by the Blethen family and McClatchy Co.

 

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