Monday, February 2, 2009

Herald & Review added to furlough list

Herald and Review employees in Decatur, Ill., will also take unpaid time off: Hourly employees must take off 12 hours by May 30, and salaried employees' pay will be reduced by an amount equal to 12 hours. The memo from editor Gary Sawyer:
We made this announcement Friday afternoon. It pertains to the furlough issue we talked about earlier.

In order to meet our goal, every employee will work unpaid for 12 hours sometime during the next 17 weeks.

For hourly employees, that means you will take 12 hours off, without pay, sometime in the next 17 weeks. We will figure out a way to get folks scheduled for those days next week. It can be taken in any increment that is approved by your supervisor.

For salaried employees, their pay will be reduced over the next 17 weeks by an amount representing the 12 hours. Salaried employees can then take 12 hours off anytime from now until the end of the fiscal year.

I know this is complicated, so if you have questions, please ask me.

Gary


Thanks to the Lee employee who sent the memo. E-mail memos and tips to lee.ent.watch@gmail.com.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

I was told the Quad-City Times laid off 10 people in January but don't have details. I do know that a 70-or-80+ year old woman features writer was let go

Anonymous said...

Question: Has there been mention at the furlough papers of a policy on overtime? The stripped-down staffs will be working more hours. Will overtime be paid?
- Curiously anonymous

Anonymous said...

Heck, we weren't paid for overtime @ The Billings Gazette as far back as the mid 80s. Comp time they called it. Things got a little slow, you were sent home and the rest of the staff picked up your duties. When I quit,I was likely still owed some comp time/pay.

Anonymous said...

It is a chain of Newspapers/Properties, however they have always acted independantly according to local rules to send back the best facts and figures to Davenport. It is a wonder we weren't working with the lights off to save money to suport the higher ups.

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