Sunday, March 08, 2009
Sunday | March 8 | Your News & Comments
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70 comments:
Jim says: "Proceed with caution; this is a free-for-all comment zone. I try to correct or clarify incorrect information. But I can't catch everything. Please keep your posts focused on Gannett and media-related subjects. Note that I occasionally review comments in advance, to reject inappropriate ones. And I ignore hostile posters, and recommend you do, too."
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First,and I dont care
ReplyDeleteI second that! But... I do care. God help me, I still do! ;(
ReplyDeleteWell, I keep seeing all this talk about what newspapers were, are, should be. I've commented before on the "customer" getting short-changed, but no one seems to care to address that issue. How is it that a customer of the "local" paper should be forced to talk to someone back East and South about their delivery, when these people have no idea what is going on in that locale (weather, whatever). Try and call about billing issues and get no help from the "COE" because they don't understand the billing system, then find out that the folks at the paper that work with it everyday can't explain it in terms the subscriber would understand either. Half the time the people at the paper can't understand it. Yes the local paper is owned by a corporation, but the locals still look at it as "THEIR" local paper, not Gannett, not some Corp. Now we're centralizing accounting....oh boy won't that make customers happy. So when ma and pa smith have a billing issue, whose gonna solve it for them...they get to call Indidanapolis or Springfield? And are they going to give the individual attention some of these small businesses need? Not on your life. Centralizing and making a one size fits all situation out of it is hurting as much as anything.
ReplyDeleteTom Callinan has a standing invitation for anyone to be his friend on Facebook. He's hurting. The company demoted him from Phoenix to the Chiquita Enquirer 6 years ago, and he's lonely and climbing the walls. Be his friend, tweet a positive note on his behalf to corporate and tell him things haven't been the same without him in Phoenix.
ReplyDeleteI am putting 5 dollars on anyone's one dollar that Gannett drops to less than 1.80 a share on monday!!
ReplyDeleteWhat do you do when you know your VP plays favorites? That he puts down one of the hardest working employees and compares him to another who is his drinking buddy, who calls in sick because he was out drinking, comes in any damn well anytime he pleases and still shines in the VP's eye. I see this other guy who is so bright and so talented and also is in the VPS circle of drinking buds, but the other is is a hack and knows nothing about Web design, yet the VP makes him a Web designer. I am sick to my stomach, that apparently that is all it takes. Hanf ou† and ge† drunk with the VP and now you are an untouchable. Work hard everyday, do the work that the hack can't do and you are in line to be laid off. Don't want to hear anything from you loyal Gannett VPS because you created this mess. When you lay me off, guess what it's your fault. You are stuck with these lazy do nothing people. They don't do all you think they do. They are so playing you as a fool. When I'm gone, you will see no†hing will g´† done. Sorry, I'm no† a drunk like you and your buds. Once again it's the good old boy network. Not gays, blacks or women need apply. Which by the way, your buddy makes fun of all day long while he is supposed to be working!
ReplyDeleteYou are such a fool and will have a lawsuit on you and the company!
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ReplyDeleteJim is there any way for you to check the amout that the company has supposely set aside for pensions. And if they are in arrears of any payments towards the pensions. As the stock drops I wouldn't trust these thieves with the time of day!
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ReplyDeleteTRUE!
ReplyDeleteSomebodies mom?
ReplyDeleteFIRST!
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ReplyDeleteTO 3/08/2009 1:27 AM, life is hard and then you die.
ReplyDeletePeople play favorites. People protect their buds. It isn't fair or right, but it is what it is.
All the fretting and blog entries in the world will not change your VP. Use that energy to help the person you feel is being discriminated against. It will be appreciated and likely is more constructive than bad mouthing a bad manager.
Army Timeser!, could you please email me at APPpensions@live.com ?
ReplyDeleteI'm wondering if the Army Times and the Asbury Park Press share a questionable peculiarity in pension.
3:39 RE: Your PENSION FUNDING Question.
ReplyDeleteI recall that in the transcipt of the Analyst Conference Call last month. Frog-Face, I mean Gracia Martore said the pension was UNDERFUNDED by approximately $600 Million. Also, she said that the company had 7 years to make up the shortfall.
I don't think GANNETT has 7 months let alone 7 years.
We, as a group, have to force the issue with corporate and local H.R. departments to find out exactly how badly we are going to get F*cked on this.
They froze the pension in August-2008. Since then the Stock Market have declined by 35-to-40% and GANNETT Stock has declined by 87+%. If the PENSION is funded principally by investments that parallel the investment choices in our 401k, we are screwed. GANNETT has NO WAY to fund such a shortfall.
Defined Benefit Plans -PENSIONS- are, if I am not mistaken, unsecured creditors within the company's capital structure.
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ReplyDeleteHey Gannett, Craig Debow won, get over it and follow his policies.
ReplyDelete21st
ReplyDelete10:12, theoretically and traditionally, a pension fund makes up much of the shortfall when the bull market returns. Much of it is invested in stocks, including GCI stocks, so the pension fund failed to earn, if I remember right, $40-something million when GCI reduced anticipated dividends last month.
ReplyDeleteThe problem is, this is not a typical market correction. Every day, more historic record corruption in the deregulated financial industries is uncovered.
As mamma used to tell me, "Money doesn't grow on trees." Because so many crooks operated as if it did, who knows when the world will recover economic health.
Jim, would you please remove 10:32? The comment is not only irrelevant to Gannett but morally offensive.
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ReplyDeletePlease don't engage in partisan political discussions here, unless they bear directly on Gannett. I just removed a series of posts, few if any of which even contained the word, "Gannett."
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ReplyDeleteAre any of the GNS folks who chose to leave still hanging around, or are they all gone??
ReplyDeleteI dont think there would be a Rochester/Binghamton consolidation.......too far apart.
ReplyDelete"NEW JERSEY PAPERS ROCK" hey RA
ReplyDeleteAbout Gannett's pension fund, you can go to the annual reports and see what the fund earned over the years. Those reports also show how much (or little) Gannett contributed to the different funds.
ReplyDelete12:48: How's this -- if you lose your bet, send the $5 to Jim in penance.
ReplyDeleteAs for bizarre out-of-state delivery centers, ours begins with a lengthy interrogation by a voice recognition system, requiring well-enunciated shouting into the phone or else ("I'm sorry, I didn't understand that. ....) Then, if you have the patience to stick through that grilling (designed, perhaps, to get the caller to hang up), you eventually get a real person who asks precisely the same questions and then gives you a credit (or not, who knows how to check that one?). The two things the person is not trained to say (and should be) is, "I'm sorry," and "You should be on track again tomorrow, but in the meantime, if you visit your paper's website you can get the headlines ...."
Would it make sense for GCI to spin Community Newspapers off as a standalone and keep the broadcast properties and USA TODAY? Community Newspapers would then be further broken up into regions and in that way could be in a better position to compete LOCALLY for ad revenue, or to restructure as online-only operations. Tucson comes to mind; it could be saved as a web-only or a print tabloid weekly with an active website to compete with the New Times-like publications.
ReplyDeleteWhether it makes sense to spin something off or sell it is not relevant. There is hardly any credit out there
ReplyDeleteSuch a move would also mean new reporting. New tax audit finance he and other back office departments
I've been very hesitant to post to this blog because I cannot talk about any first hand information, but I am very aware that something is going on. A couple of weeks ago, all of the newspapers sent two or three of top management(or were they summoned)to Corp for a 3-day meeting. Now that the publishers, vice presidents, advertising directors, circulation personnel and HR respresentatives are back home, how are they acting? At my particular paper, they are acting very closed off. Is anyone else picking up on these vibes? Meetings, phone calls, no eye contact with employees, (just another normal day -- maybe) but the hairs on the back of my neck say different. You all keep asking if there are going to be more furloughs or layoffs... tune in to what is happening at your paper, step back and take a hard look, tell us what you see.
ReplyDeleteLayoffs and furloughs to announced tomorrow/Monday!
ReplyDeletethat is........
ReplyDeleteLayoffs and furloughs to be announced tomorrow/Monday!
3:39/3:41 - What is your proof?
ReplyDeleteI just know.........
ReplyDeleteCirculation employees... listen up. The 18 newspapers in the southeast group (I do not know the politically correct name)... independent contractors will take a 12% profit cut starting period 5... that is if they choose to sign the new contracts to be offerd to them in the next few weeks.
ReplyDeletewhen our ad director (what a joke) was "away" for the trip to Gannettland HQ, all of us were hoping that they had finally figured out that she is a complete loser and were firing her. No luck yet on that one. Of course, Gannett keeps the losers around just look at Dubow and company.
ReplyDelete10:53---10:12 here.
ReplyDeleteI agree, this is not a "normal" (inventory adjustment cycle) recession; It is -in fact- A Kondratiev-Wave Great-Depression Event like the 1930s, 1870s, & 1830s. Principally characterized by a Multiple-Contraction-In-Credit. The government prints money to prop up a collapsing Debt Structure; it can't keep up with the real DEBT DEFAULT DESTRUCTION RATE and thus the financial system loses it's ability to make new loans or maintain existing debts >>>watch out for ROLLOVER of Junk-Rated GANNETT DEBT.
The "Talking Heads" in the media, corporate schmucks, conventional economists, government officials won't fully realize this until we are deep into it. By October-2009 they wll see how bad it truly is. Stimulus will fail and morph into HyperInflation, REAL Demand (and production) around the world will continue to implode, and smaller economies currency collapses will trip-wire collapse of European financial system.
This has been an area of study for me since 1985; it is, however, terrifying actually go into a Depression like this with a populace that is not fully prepared to adapt to a much lower standard of living.
To paraphrase the meteorologist in the movie The Perfect Storm..... "You could be an (economist) all your life and never see something like this....all these smaller (economic)storms coming together feeding on each other....it would be a catastrophe of epic proportions....it would be....THE PERFECT STORM.
Gannett and unfortunately our pension are the Andrea Gail
Things quiet and somber with upper management here at one of NJ's papers. For the past two weeks, you would have thought that someone died. I just know it's coming!
ReplyDelete12:52 PM, you are right that the returns on pension investments are easy to find in annual reports.
ReplyDeleteThat's why I think it's odd that those of us who were vested with newspapers purchased in summer 1997, such as the Asbury Park Press and perhaps also the Army Times, saw all of our old pension money presumably merged into that Gannett pension fund as of Jan. 1, 1998, and yet are not getting the benefit of any of those easily identifiable profits on our old cash-balance accounts.
I'm told the best the company's actuarial could do is use a percentage of our 1997 single-year salary and raise it to that percentage of the average of our last five years, without even benefit of annual compounding let alone the investment gains all those years in the bull market.
It seems to me an actuarial could use those annual reports to come up with something a little more precise, and I suspect doing so would be a little more favorable to us at the old APP.
I asked Carrie Oman, a GCI pension administrator, for the name and address of the actuarial, but she refused. She replied that she did not want me contacting them.
So, two weeks ago, I asked to draw on my entitlement to copies of pension records, and I asked for copies of the correspondences between the actual and the trustee related to the APP from 1997 to now, and so far I've received nothing.
Anyone have thoughts on this? I'm considering appealing the amount determined to be my pension, but I feel without this information I don't know enough to do so. All I have is Oman's email explanation of how it was calculated, and no answer from her as to why.
The use of the date Jan. 1, 1998, as the official real estate closing when other sources show our newspapers were sold many months prior is another curiosity not yet explained. What is clear is that if Gannett showed us being Gannett employees prior to Jan. 1, 1998, the law requires us to be treated like any other employee in the Gannett pension fund and this goofy "transitional" formula would be moot.
Oops: ... I asked for copies of the correspondences between the ACTUARIAL and the trustee related to the APP from 1997 to now ...
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ReplyDeleteWhy are layoffs and furloughs being announced on a Monday? Doesn't make sense. And in the middle of a period. Are you sure it will be tomorrow? Would make more sense to do it closer to the end of the period.
ReplyDeleteLinda,
ReplyDeleteHave you tried a site called FreeERISA? It has the IRS forms 9900, and those include the actuarial information, including what company did them, I believe.
Hey New Jersey Rocks.
ReplyDeleteEverything was fine in the presidential suites today. lol
6:15, When I accessed some freeerisa site awhile back, it turned out not to be free or very informative.
ReplyDeleteI don't know if finding Gannett's actuarial in recent 990s would tell me reliably what actuarial came up with the bizarre formula being applied to pre-1998 APP pension.
Don't you think the trustee must have had correspondences with the actuarial pertaining to this, specifically? The SPD says we all are entitled to access all pension records and to request copies, perhaps with fair copy charges. I really want to read those.
"ROCK ON" AND GLAD TO HEAR EVERYTHING IN THE PRESIDENTIAL SUITES TODAY WAS OK
ReplyDeleteI purposely chose one of the latest available furlough weeks so that if there were layoffs this quarter and I lost my job, I wouldn't have lost a paycheck. How ironic it will be if I return from furlough tomorrow to another big layoff announcement. Good luck, guys. We're gonna need it.
ReplyDeleteLinda,
ReplyDeleteYou might want to make sure you're asking for information about the actuary, not actuarial. The actuary is the person or company. If they want to be pedantic and obstructionist, they could turn down your request for that info.
No announcement is coming this week.
ReplyDeleteThis ongoing concern about the pensions, and the secretiveness and lack of willingness to provide information that should be readily available, sounds very troubling. I knew people at my site who were 20+ year staffers who took the last major buyout. They had better still get their pension if that's what they are entitled to. If not, can you say "class action lawsuit"????
ReplyDeleteGoing back to my 2:41 comment, and addressing 11:19pm as well: Gannett is too big. Newspapers, which sometimes are the only ways people get the real story on what is happening in their town, far less so than a 20-second radio report or a one-minute so-called "live, local, latebreaking" TV report, work best when they are locally owned and responsive to the needs of local readers and local advertisers. A company based in Washington or New York has no business owning papers in California. Period. The problem with newspapers and the media in general nowadays is too much consolidation and not enough "local". I think advertisers are bailing from GCI papers as much for the fact that their paper is under out-of-state ownership as it is for the economy.
ReplyDeleteI'm on furlough and shouldn't even know this, but word from the Crystal palace in Tysons is that there is a mouse infestation in the newsrooms on the third floor.
ReplyDeleteCatch them and sell them to the soon-to-be-laid-off employees for food.
ReplyDeleteLinda,
ReplyDeleteI found the forms on freeERISA with no problems. The basic service is free. You do have to sign up, but I think you might get everything you need there, including maybe even the old forms filled out by the previous company.
That certainly would list the actuary.
Thanks 7:40 PM. Good point. I'll try to be more careful using actuary/actuarial.
ReplyDelete8:14 PM, I would hope a class-action suit isn't necessary. Sometimes workers have done things one way so long they don't question it if no one else does.
I hope my questions will get a serious review to determine if a reasonable and equitable formula was used. At this stage, I'm assuming the company operates in at least quasi-good faith. I haven't heard or seen where anyone asked to see how and why the actuary came up with what seems to be to be a cockamamy formula.
That's why I decided to run a test balloon here. It looks likely to affect the Army Times and the Home News Tribune pensioners, too, although I haven't seen anyone from either mention it yet.
8:38: Besides turning down the lights, Crystal Palace must be cutting down on janitorial and pest control services!
ReplyDelete4:28 pm,
ReplyDeleteWhich paper are you at?
8:41: Uh, EW. :)
ReplyDeleteNo layoffs or additional furloughs announced tomorrow. Trust me, I know. They may be in the next couple of weeks but not tomorrow.
ReplyDeleteOkay 3:41 says layoffs are coming tomorrow. 7:53 says no announcements this week. Does anyone out there have legitimate info one way or another?!
ReplyDeleteLinda,
ReplyDeleteI believe those formulas are prescribed.
Has anyone noticed that their official "Gannett Employee Handbook" has NOT been updated? I thought this was something that should consistantly be updated as the policies change.,eg: pensions frozen, benefit reductions for part-timers, hours worked definitions, 30 hours or more per week was always classified as FULL TIME with FULL TIME benefits until they decided to casually change this in Jan. Meaning NO MORE paid sick time, vacation time, or holidays. Any accrued time off has ceased, as well. Most people I know that are catagorized as such had been working close to full time hours anyway, until they were told to work no more than 30 hours per week, period! Some of these employees have 25+ yrs. with the company! How's that for appreciation? I realize their are those that no longer have a job but it all comes down to unappreciation. In the past when asked "where do you work?" I used to be SO PROUD to say, "I work at *****, and have for ## yrs!" Now when asked I usually get a mournful hug and "I'm sorry"!
ReplyDeleteTo 12:29 PM
ReplyDeleteBinghamton used to be partnered with Utica before. Perhaps Classifieds could consolidate with Rochester at least. You would still need people in separate locals for retail though I suppose,
Layoffs question: No across-the-chain announcement due this week or next. Any announcement about pending furloughs/layoffs likely at EOM. Hang int here. Understand it is tough. Company reviewing what real strategies for savings it can deploy versus fingers, toes and arms.
ReplyDeleteAnonymous 9:25 and prior, who says, "Linda, I believe those formulas are prescribed," I'm asking you, prescribed by whom? I'm asking here if anyone else knows, because Gannett hasn't answered me.
ReplyDeleteThe SPD also "prescribes" that we will get annual summaries of Gannett's pension account, but I don't think I ever received any such thing before the freeze notice last summer.
Your reply seems funny, given the details I already revealed. And you seem to be the same person who has posted countless times that those of us with pension questions should go to the freeERISA site, but that is a paid subscription site. Do you own or have some financial interest in getting people to become members? Are you someone on a pension staff whose subscription is paid, so you forget we can't access it as you can?
Anyway, I and others who are longtime APP have scoured all our notices from the company, pre- and post-Gannett, and can't find any record of being informed on or about Jan. 1, 1998, that Gannett would be doling out to us only about 2% a year increase -- noncompounded and tied to merit pay raises -- from 1998 foreward on the cash-balance CASH PENSION accounts our old owners handed over to Gannett in some fashion. What exactly Gannett did with the cash, I do not know for sure, but I wonder.
If we had been informed of this "prescription" in a clear and timely manner in 1998, if in fact it was "prescribed" in 1998, I think we as a class would have demanded Gannett release our pension so we could invest it for more reasonable positive returns. Our money would have earned more than double in a bank CD, and it would have been compounded MONTHLY, guaranteed and not left a mystery until the day we asked to remove it.
If, in fact, this "prescription" is something of a more recent concoction, I think we have an altogether different matter, and a different set of questions and concerns.
The math and the lack of transparency make it hard not to think something may be wrong with this "prescription," I think.