I nearly went crazy working absurdly long hours at The Idaho Statesman when I was business editor with a three-person staff in the early 1990s. There was too much work for too few people. But I was in management, so it was easy for the publisher to pile work on; after all, he didn't have to pay me overtime.Now, as Gannett asks employees to do even more with less, I worry about the hours worked by city editors and other exempt staff with front-line responsibilities. And I worry even more about non-exempt hourly staff, including reporters and photographers, pressured to work off the clock. (Related survey: Do you feel pressure to work unpaid hours? Please answer that question in the poll box at the top of the blue sidebar, right.)
Here's what I heard from a reader who works at a Gannett paper in the 50,000-circulation range; cutbacks have reduced newsroom employment by about a third in recent years, the reader says, fearing she'll lose her job for contacting me. "The cuts on our local organization did away with the fat about three years ago. They dipped into muscle last year,'' she says. "The word is that more cuts are headed our way. . . . Management seems to think nothing of requiring salaried staff to work 15-hour days -- daily -- just to get the basics done. The future does not look bright."
She asks: Am I the only one? I ask: Are you being pressed to work off the clock because your company won't pay overtime? Use this link to e-mail your reply. See Tipsters Anonymous Policy in the sidebar, upper right. Or leave a note in the comments section, below.
[Image: my favorite heartless boss, C. Montgomery Burns, of The Simpsons]
I know you probably think that editorial is the center of the newspaper universe and the situation is bleak but for the employees that are working down in the production trenches things are abysmal.
ReplyDeleteAs a frontline manager at a small to midsized site 60 hour weeks were demanded. Short two employees? No problem, we got you dear.
You could expect that the operating budget that you worked on so diligently to keep flat for the tenth consecutive year would be eaten away because either another department was over budget, your site or district was under budget, or a unforeseen breakdown occurred. Money flowed backwards on a monthly basis.
I went to work for Gannett looking for opportunity and what I found at the two sites I worked at was a situation like something out of "The Jungle". Unfortunately when I made the decision to get out of the newspaper bidness I didn't get a cushy severance package, instead I got escorted to the door.)
At the Gannett paper I worked at (yes, past tense), it was common for upper managers to say things like, "It is generally accepted that managers work 55 hours a week." (for 40 hours' pay). Of course, these same managers were the ones who would leave at 3 p.m. on a regular basis, and who did not work anywhere close to what the middle managers did. Now, that's leadership!
ReplyDeleteI used to be concerned about things like presentation and quality. Then I heard those five magical words at the beginning of '07 - 'Good enough is good enough.'
ReplyDeleteNow my attitude can be summed up in two words - 'fuck it.' Art sucks for the Thursday lede? 'Fuck it.' No Web extra for Sunday's travel story? 'Fuck it.' ME wants multiple layers of content for tomorrow's story that was filed last week? 'Sure thing, boss.' But you can bet your bottom dollar that when I leave that news meeting, the first thing I say to myself out the door is, wait for it, wait for it, yep - 'Fuck it.'
He'll forget about the request anyway.
My heart goes out to each and every exempt employee in the company. It's amazing to me how in 10 years I've seen a huge chunk of vibrant idealism chipped away to the point that contempt and cynicism are all that remain.
Can you tell it's Monday?
Ahhh, fuck it. I need me some coffee.
When I was an non-exempt copy editor/paginator at a 55,000-circ Gannett paper, we got our stern, formally worded notices once or twice a year saying Gannett does NOT authorize comp time or unpaid overtime, and that all overtime will be paid, and that all overtime should be approved before being worked.
ReplyDeleteOf course, there was no way in hell the paper would get out unless we worked 45-50 hours apiece. Everybody knew it. Just another one of the ways Gannett fools itself.
As for the "generally accepted" comment above, the exempt desk chief at that paper was scheduled for 50 hours a week worth of shifts, and still is. Five 10-hour shifts, on the schedule. That's just the way it is.
Yeah, I was a salaried employee who did the 60-hour-plus weeks and saw a whole year of my life go poof! Like Jim, I wised up and got the hell out of Gannett — a corporation only a character by Dickens could love.
ReplyDeleteIt was hard to do — once a journalist always a journalist. But there are things in life far more important than making some uncaring clod of an EE eligible to get a freakin' gold ring.
Gannett workers nationwide should stand up together, join unions, strike and try to get a Congressional panel to look at the horrific work conditions they are subjected to, let alone Gannett's propensity for crushing local papers.
If the subscribers and advertisers knew what was going on behind the scenes of their local papers, perhaps they'd think twice about sending their money to Gannett.
This is what the McPaperization of America has wrought.
After years of working 60+ hour weeks for nothing...I finally left my "post" at Gannett. I started out in a department of three people, both the manager and my co-worker left within weeks of each other, just leaving me. I was supposed to be a senior analyst, then realized that they weren't even paying me to my salary level and they acted like THEY were doing ME a favor by bumping me up to the right level and calling it a raise. I did the work of the manager and two analysts for a YEAR, assuming that doing a good job would be rewarded and I would get the manager title and pay. After all, I had proven I could do the work, so TO ME it seemed logical. Then they hired a manager for me, someone who couldn't even open Excel and didn't even understand or care what I did. So I finally left and it was the best decision I've ever made.
ReplyDelete