Sunday, August 31, 2008
Sunday | Aug. 31 | Got news, or a question?
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33 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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ReplyDeleteIn Salem, this last week, we got an email from our publisher about a program where employees can donate to a disaster relief fund for fellow employees. I'm guessing this was maybe in anticipation of the hurricane that's barreling down on the Gulf. However, it was also unfortunately timed to come out not long after the companywide layoffs. Some of us were — in the spirit of gallows humor — joking about whether we should email the publisher and offer to donate to help our recently laid off compatriots.
ReplyDeleteAnybody else have an email go around like that from their publishers this past week?
No, but in Cherry Hill we received a memo on Wednesday that due to a bank switch, our direct deposit paychecks are no longer guaranteed to be in our banks the day on payday. Bank of America is saying it'll take 48 hours for the monies to appear in our accounts.
ReplyDeleteBut pay no attention to that...we're getting new carpet. Yay.
Cherry Hill,
ReplyDeleteSounds like there may be a legal issue here. You're money is supposed to be availble to you on the day you are paid. If they cannot do this through direct deposit, I believe they have to make a physical check available to you on pay day ... not two days after the fact.
It actually ran in the Executive News Summary the week the layoffs were announced;
ReplyDeleteINTERNAL
Help needed to strengthen employee disaster relief fund
Gannett’s G.I.V.E/Lend-a-Hand needs help in strengthening the “Employee Disaster Relief Fund.” To make a contribution, employees can make a donation, purchase “Gannett Colleagues Who Care” bracelets (minimum cost is $1) and/or G.I.V.E. cookbooks ($15) through the secure Colleagues Who Care Web site (click here to donate) that allows for credit card purchases and donations. Donations cannot be matched by Gannett Foundation but are tax-deductible.
I wonder if anyone has anything encouraging going on at work. At our small paper we work way more than eight hours each day, nobody gets more than a three percent raise each year and, worst of all, editors are just plain mean in reviews. Why stay in this job, even if it's what we have always wanted to do, when the work environment is so awful?
ReplyDeleteHattiesburg American news staff has been told it has to spend the night at the paper if Gustaf hits Monday. Do they have to pay us overtime for forcing us to do this?
ReplyDeleteOT is determined by your job classification. If you are considered a "professional" you are most likely paid a salary. If you do collect OT then you should get it in this case. I'm betting that in the absence of a CBA you're considered a professional by state statute and do not have to be paid.
ReplyDeleteIf you are offered "comp time" in lieu of OT pay it has to be taken in the pay period it was earned. For example if the pay period is every two weeks and ends on Friday and you work 6 hours overtime on Tuesday the comp time has to be before the end of the pay period by Friday before the new pay period begins. If it is not taken in the pay period you have to be paid OT. You cannot bank or save comp time. This is the most common wage and hour violation behind not paying OT at all.
We're in Gustav's path and the salaried employees have been told they are essential, which means we're supposed to be at work during the worst of the storm.
ReplyDeleteOT is not governed by state law. A number of court cases have set the national standards on this as regards editorial personnel.
ReplyDeleteUnder federal wage-and-hour law, every "non-exempt" employee must be paid OT for working more than 8 hours in any given day.
"Non-exempt" means non-management, as in you have no hiring and firing authority. Reporters, photographers, copy editors, page designers, artists etc. are non-exempt.
Track your hours. Report them on your time sheets. If they don't pay OT, they are in violation of federal law. If they try to tell you or suggest or imply that you must file false time sheets, they are in serious violation of federal law.
Anyone who doesn't WANT to be at the newspaper when a hurricane hits the town they cover isn't nuch of a journalist.
ReplyDeleteOvertime? That's the last thing anyone should be thinking about. It's a calling, people.
2:42:
ReplyDeleteDo people and businesses get to pick and choose laws to follow?
Having "the calling" attitude means the owners/managers get rich. You get tired, abused, broke and emotionally thrilled.
It would be nice if the bosses actually respected you in the morning.
Sunday, paper> You know the big fat Sunday, papers> The ones with more sections fatter news. Then their the Sunday paper traditions. The ads, that are stuffed, inside Sunday's paper> You know the ones I am talking about, Your local malls, the box stores, Best Buy, City, Target, furniture. Well not one ad insert section in today MANSFIELD, NEWS JOURNAL. Obviously the advertiser, are in support of Gannett laying off,are laying off buying ads. By the way, if any of you Gannett Copy Editors, who got layoff are looking for a job. The Mansfield News Journal, has an ad for one.
ReplyDeleteCouple things to clarify. States can and do have wage and hour laws. Many have minimum wage which his higher than the federal minimum, and that must be followed. So every state can be different. But I guess if someone wanted to stay home, they surely could. If they can't get to work, I guess they could take a vacation day or a sick day instead of COVERING a major disaster. I guess.
ReplyDeleteI had to laugh at the payroll question. Of course they have to pay you on pay day. Insist on it. But at my paper our checks under the old system came 1 or 2 days ahead of payday, depending on the bank. Now, under the new system, the money is in the account on payday. Period. It's not illegal, but I know I was breaking some kind of law when I wrote checks on money that was there before payday. I think it's called Kiting. We ran a story about it a couple years ago where a local administrator was doing the same thing. Cost him his job.
2:42: Said...
ReplyDelete"Do people and businesses get to pick and choose laws to follow?"
Only Gannett. They break it, you have to hire a lawyer to fight it.
Here's how Gannett skirted OT pay when I worked for a small paper. The managers would tell you to cut subsequent days short after a long day or a series of long days. But if you did that and actually went in later than planned or left earlier to avoid OT, you paid dearly for doing that. Believe me. It was a no- win situation that I could have handled, but it got old week after week and month after month.
ReplyDeleteThere was a comment recently about what Gannett's intentions are with your 401K monies... Whether they intend to confiscate this money, if they can legally do it or if they'll just do it and leave it up to the individual employee to fight it. Why wait around for this to happen or why allow Gannett to manage your money (YBR) when they can't even manage their company anymore? Gannett's stock is crap... You can make a better return stuffing your money in a mattress. Change your contribution to reflect your confidence in the company you work for. You can do it on-line at YBR or call them at 1-866-343-2333.
ReplyDeleteI was laid off and I checked my 401K as of the day I got laid off my contribution went to 0. I went online and tried to change it to change it to 5% and it told me that I was not authorized to do so.
ReplyDeleteThis means that as far as the severance pay goes Gannett is not allowing me to make any contributions so they do not have to match what I am putting in. Is this another screwing from the company?
To all that got laid off check your 401ks.
@8:51 am: The same thing happened to me after I took a buyout from USA Today earlier this year.
ReplyDeleteSo Jim it appears that whether it was a buyout or a layoff the 401k is frozen as of your last day.
ReplyDeleteNo more contributions and no more matching.
So if one is payed a severance, is that payment technically paid AFTER your "last day" of employment, therefore not qualifying as a "contribution" to your 401K? Someone please find out the technicality and legality of this issue!!!
ReplyDeleteHope they lay off Mr. Calling. That's nonsense given the way you're being treated. Wake up, sheep.
ReplyDeleteIt is a technical issue: the lump sum payment is not a salary, it is a severance. Actually, I believe a lot of the severance money is coming from newspaper traditional fixed pension plans which, because of the (previous years) stock boom were overfunded before they were frozen for lower-level employees. That is another very complicated issue. But severance is clearly not regular pay, and so not subject to the 401K withdrawal. That is not to say I agree with the way Gannett is doing this, because I do not.
ReplyDeleteYep, it's a calling. Yep, any real journalist should want to be there should a hurricane hit. Should they pay you OT for hours worked? Absolutely. Last I heard, Lincoln freed the slaves...
ReplyDeleteThe fact that you expect to get OT for hours worked does not make journalism any less a calling for individuals. And, as another person pointed out, the law is very clear: non-exempt personal get OT. Legal cases, most notably one involving the Washington Post, have confirmed this. If they don't try to pay you for extra hours at the newsroom, file a complaint. Gannett is very nervous about wage-and-hour violations right now, as well it should be with its past history.
ReplyDeleteI worked during hurricanes in Fla a few years ago at several Gannett papers and they do in fact pay you overtime for hours worked. Doesn't matter if its a calling or not, you do get ot if you work......
ReplyDeleteIRS does not allow contributions to 401(k) from severance, because they don't consider it earned income.
ReplyDeleteIn NJ, you rarely got paid OT for working breaking news or for working assigned hours that exceeded your 37.5 paycheck hours. It's a calling, yes, but Gannett uses that against you. There were tons of people in NJ who were afraid to put down their OT hours on their timesheets and when they did, they were told to change them. I was on at least two occasions. Complaining to the Labor Department did nothing, because as long as they have your signature on a document saying you only worked x hours, the company wins. Fighting them through the labor dept. got me nowhere because the culture of fear was so inbred that no one wanted to go against Skip. I loved what I did and I worked hard every day. But watching Skip abuse people, including me, despite all of Donovan's proclamations about changing the culture of fear, drove me out.
ReplyDeleteQuestion?
ReplyDeleteWhy doesn't Gannett coordinate storm coverage? Seems like that would be a dandy way to cut down on OT.
If you're not exempt, you should get time and a half for overtime, period, end of story, disaster or no disaster, no matter what state you're in. If the company doesn't want to pay you, managers have to send you home. I'm a front-line manager caught between the law and people I supervise and higher people who want demands (and who, I have to admit, insist on doing things right -- there are managers like that). That said, with a big disaster like a hurricane, anything you do to get the news out on print or online is truly a community service at this time. I remember covering a hurricane -- at a non-Gannett paper, but it wouldn't really matter -- and being told afterward that the information and news in the paper were tremendously helpful in the aftermath, especially since radio and TV were out of the question with the power out -- or some stations off the air. Plus, merely seeing the paper being published and delivered was one of the few things that told people that things were going to be ok. So take pride in the work now -- but get paid for it, too.
ReplyDeleteI was a newsroom manager in the NJ group. Upper level management encouraged you to find ways to avoid paying people OT - you were to "adjust their schedule" to send them home early in the week, or encourage comp time. Legally you couldn't carry comp time over to the next time period, but many reporters WANTED to accumulate some comp time to take long weekends, etc. Everyone who worked for me worked damn hard, and they deserved every minute of their OT. But it was a constant struggle to get reporters OT. When I had the temerity to complain to the EE that I was tired of ripping reporters off by not paying OT, I got my head handed to me big time. So I can understand why the Hattiesburg reporters are apprehensive...
ReplyDeleteWow, are some Gannett sites more ignorant than others? Relatively new to Gannett (Less than 5 yrs) but my site pays straight time for anything over 37.5 and OT for hours over 40. Pure and simple, no ifs ands or buts. Never been told to fudge timecard but do need to get prior OK for non-breaking events. Once worked for small family-owned paper that forced us to work a series of 40+ weeks. Someone (not me) turned them in and US dept. of Labor wages & hours division forced them to pay all of us back OT, for me that was about $400 (1978 dollars). Seems it should be relatively easy to document transgressions and turn the bastards in. After all, some of you are reporters, no?
ReplyDeleteHey 4:07 you should contact me. I have a pending EOC case right now. And if that fails I will keep on trying. I plan on being a thorn in Skippy's side for as long as possible. I never met a bigger bully that was such a coward. Shoot me an e-mail if you want at chriser98@yahoo.com.
ReplyDelete