Newark Star-Ledger warns employees of possible sale, closing

[marmar]

Star-Ledger warns employees of possible sale, closing
by The Star-Ledger Continuous News Desk
Tuesday September 16, 2008, 1:25 PM



The Star-Ledger today warned employees that the paper will be sold or closed by January if the drivers' union does not ratify an agreement by Oct. 8.

In a notice to employees, publisher George Arwady said "it is most unfortunate that we have to send out this notice, but the Drivers have left us with no choice." Negotiating a new contract with the Newspaper and Mail Deliverers Union, which represents about 90 Star-Ledger drivers, has been one of three conditions ownership has placed on the continued operation of the paper.

Arwady, in a note to the staff, said the mailers' union has a ratification vote scheduled for September 22 and a newspaper-wide buyout program is ongoing.

The owners set a deadline of Oct. 1 for getting 200 of the newspaper's 756 non-union full-time employees to take a buyout and for achieving the union concessions. The Star-Ledger's total work force is 1,412.

Donald Newhouse, president of Advance Publications Inc., owner of The Star-Ledger, said today he is hopeful a settlement with the drivers can be reached in time, but he declined to discuss details.

"We have no negotiating session set with the drivers' union, and obviously we do not have an agreement," he said. "It's in negotiations, and it would be counterproductive for me to discuss the negotiations."

Newhouse said he remains bullish on The Star-Ledger's chances if the paper can "right-size" itself. "We strongly believe that if we can achieve the three objectives we set for ourselves ... then we will be able to produce a viable newspaper," he said. ......(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.nj.com/news/index.ssf/2008/09/starledger_warns_employees_of.html

[hay rick]

1. Drivers at NYT also getting hammered.

The January plug-pulling threat coincides with the NYT's scheduled closing of their City and Suburban distribution subsidiary. Article here:http://phx.corporate-ir.net/phoenix.zhtml?c=105317&p=irol-pressArticle&ID=1194610&highlight=
The third party services that NYT will use are non-union. Survival trumps principles.

The red ink in the newspaper business is draining the life blood out of some fine newspapers. Wonder what the media environment will be like as the herd of newspaper reporters is thinned out and thinned out some more.

[TreasonousBastard]

2. That sucks. I used to read the Star-Ledger...

daily when I lived in Joisey, and it was a damn good paper-- some hard local investigative stuff and just great ballsy coverage of pretty much everything you wanted to know about. It'll be a very sad day if it goes down.

The Newhouse people were amongst the good guys back then, and McClatchy seems to have been trying to hold things together, but it's just so damn difficult when your revenue stream heads south as your readership declines.

Too bad people just refuse to read newspapers. (Then they turn around and blame them for the sorry state of things, including the news coverage.)

And, ummm... offishully, I'm all for unions, but this isn't the first time a union threatened to put a company out of business-- it's not always just management being a bunch of pricks in these negotiations.

[StrongBad]

3. My dad has worked for the Ledger for 20+ years

He may be forced to retire early with a meager pension because of all this. A lot of other people under 55 will just get screwed over. It sucks but it does seem that there is little they can do. No ad revenue plus declining subscriptions is a bad combination.