Monday, October 27, 2008
Monday | Oct. 27 | Got news, or a question?
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36 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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It's Monday! How are you?
ReplyDeleteAny idea how much money is/was put in the typical pension plan annually?
ReplyDeleteCan the Pension Obligation be voided/reduced with a bankruptcy or major restructuring AND would we have any recourse. I've heard of troubled companies laying-off their pension obligation the the federal PENSION BENEFITS GUARANTY CORP.
ReplyDeleteHow is it possible to even know what your pension benefits will be? Having been laid off, I am told that HR cannot provide updated pension statistics until two months before my severance runs out...at which time I can roll it over directly into a bank IRA. There was a pension estimate given to everyone in July which many claimed was inaccurate. As the current economic market has fallen so much lately, how.when can we get an estimate of the pension we will receive-- not in twenty years but in two months!
ReplyDeleteRegarding the upcoming layoffs - I hope they are taking a good look at middle management. We have a manager who walks thru the department in the morning without speaking to any of us - no good morning, NOTHING. We have all concluded that we no longer have weekly staff meetings because we are all given different information from this manager. This manager is so unmotivating that it is a joke around the office. We are always being threatened with what other newspapers are doing. In these times, we need someone who is in our corner.
ReplyDeleteA GOOD QUOTE that clarifies what We (as a company need) from today Ivestor's Business Daily's WISDON TO LIVE BY on Page A3.
ReplyDeleteIf you actions inspire others to dream more, learn more, do more and Become More, You are a LEADER.
John Quincy Adams, 6th President of the United States.
Listening CRAIG et al?????
12:43 AM
ReplyDeleteThe annual reports tell how much Gannett contributed to retirement plans annually.
Someone posted on a Saturdays blog about A/P-G/L in INDY totally "blew up". How true is this and does anybody know what to expect? Our managers in the accounting department sure aren't talking about this!!!! I'd kinda like to know what to plan!
ReplyDelete7:11 you are so right. The problem with Gannett is the newspapers directors hire people that are their friends and may not be qualified for the job or dealing with people. If Gannett Inc. had more of a role in recruitment it might be better. At my newspaper they would promote sales reps with little outside experience and zero people skills just because they were desperate to fill a hole. It had nothing to do with numbers at all. We even have one manager that takes a break every hour to walk around the city smoking cigarettes and drinking coffee alone. That's just weird.
ReplyDelete10:22...What does A/P-G/L refer to??
ReplyDeleteJim, the ABC circulation numbers are out today, can you find out what they list the Westchester paper's circulation as?
ReplyDeleteI'm not a writer, but as a newpaper employee, friends (and people who know I work in the business) constantly tell me their complaints about our product...to which I say " I'm just a flunky trying to get the paper out the door and on the street."
ReplyDeleteHowever, yesterday my friend's 75 year old Mother & a 50+ YEAR SUBSCRIBER, said something to me while we were watching the Jets game that gave me a chill.
She said -in her thick Irish accent- that she was considering canceling her 7-Day Subscription because "there is nothing in the paper anymore." She told me she might keep the Sunday Only subscription to get the coupons.....that's what we've come to.....buy us for the coupons. Then she told me she could print most of her coupons on the computer.
If we're losing this type of FOUNDATION READER...who is using our ADVERTISER'S ONLINE COUPONS....and we're selling our used single copy delivery truck on Craigslist......We're F*CKED!!!
10:52...A/P is for Accounts Payable and G/L is for General Ledger...These jobs were the jobs that are being centralized in Indy.
ReplyDeletePer pensions, you need to get your pension out from under Gannett hands immediately. I did so after I lost my job at The Tennessean as a political columnist a year ago -- due to the judgment of Editor Mark Silverman.
ReplyDeleteI wrote about how to do all this on my blog, www.politicasalsa.com. And I keep close track of The Tennessean fortunes or misfortunes on the blog, too.
First, send in the pension paperwork to corporate. Be sure to follow up with an e-mail to a specific person to confirm receipt and to put Gannett on the clock timewise and legally. Also ask for immediate computation of how much is in your pension. You have leverage.
Second, open up an account for your pension money with someone like Pershing. Avoid brokerage firms. They charge big fees. Your pension can only be delivered to an account, not you personally. So the check should be made out to Pershing, with FBO for you. FBO means for For Benefit Of.
Get an account number and send that in to Gannett a few days later. Again, ask for a confirmation receipt.
Pensions are gifts from a company. Unless they are governed and backed by the federally created pension backed agency, PBGC, pension plans follow their own peculiar rules meant to first protect the company. As for bankruptcy law, yes, these pensions can be eliminated or you will be an unsecured creditor getting 20 cents on the dollar. I know this truth from covering federal bankruptcy court for 10 years as an economics reporter. A lot of working people really got screwed.
If I can be of assistance to any of you based on my experiences, please let me know. You can e-mail me privately at timchavez787@yahoo.com, and I'll help.
Here is another reason to get your pension as a retiree or someone who has been laid off. Companies invest the pension money according to their wisdom and greed. If your pension has been invested like most consumers, it has lost a lot of value in the market downturn. I was able to get my money and pension out of the stock market when it was above 12,000. I also helped a close friend and former supervisor do the same.
I'd invest in a fixed-income mutual fund based on government issued-securities, such as T-bills. You can get a guaranteed a 5% return, according to Vanguard's investment vehicles.
I deeply respect everything all of you have done for our profession. You sacrified your hearts and souls to preserve our craft. As a journalist, I won all of Gannett's big writing and supervisor awards. But all that didn't matter when it came time for me to lose my job.
So the least I owe you is any experience I have in negotiating you out of this mess that has been set upon you. God bless each of you and your families. You deserved so much better.
With highest regards,
Tim Chavez
tim left an "L" out of his blog address
ReplyDeletehttp://politicalsalsa.com/
or
http://politicalsalsa.blogspot.com/
Journal News, Westchester
ReplyDelete121,754 Sunday (was 128,810 on 9/30/07 PS; 144,335 on 3/27/06 AR)
99,971 Daily [M-F avg] (was 111,536 on 9/30/07 PS; 129,554 on 3/27/06 AR)
97,755 Monday (was 108,523 on 9/30/07 PS; 120,728 on 3/27/06 AR)
3/27/06 AR figures are featured on the paper's website. The last AR was 3/31/07.
In 2002, Westchester was 172,471 Sunday, 144,001 Daily.
ReplyDeleteDoes anyone know anything about the Digg? Haven't heard anything in months, does it have a boss, does it do anything, does it still exist?
ReplyDeleteAnon at 2:23, are those numbers the combined total for Westchester, Rockland and Putnam?
ReplyDeleteTim Chavez' advice is solid. Most former employees don't think of getting control of their pensions, and then are surprised later how little they get when time comes to collect. Gannett is cutting back across-the-board, and that probably will mean contributions to the pension program, too. Also there were favorable rulings under the Bush administration that allowed companies to find they had overfunded their pension plans, and claw some of the money back. Remember it is the company's pension plan, not yours. Don't forget that, or you could be really sorry.
ReplyDeleteThey stopped contributions to the pension program.
ReplyDeleteI think I remember seeing that,with the exceptions of the UK and some bargaining units, they stopped contributing in 2004. Maybe it was 2005. The information is in the annual reports.
ReplyDeletexxx Can the Pension Obligation be voided/reduced with a bankruptcy or major restructuring xxx
ReplyDeleteNo they cannot void the pension with a restructuring. Yes, it can be voided with a bankruptcy, as in Chapter 7 when everything is wrapped up. Pension plans then become part of the assets to be divided up. Yes they can claim it is overfunded and get some of their money back.
The annual reports only tell half of the story on contributions to the pension plan, since they don't say how the money was invested. Like your 401K they put a certain amount of money in and then count on the stock market to grow it sufficiently to cover your benefits. We all know what has happened to the stock market in the last month. If everyone demanded their pension money, the plan would collapse. It doesn't have enough to cover the benefits, and is counting on some beneficiaries dying before they can make any claims.
ReplyDelete11:16
ReplyDeleteWe (Gannett) has totally given up on the print product. Pubs and higherups will deny it but consider the facts. We continue to cut resources from print....even revenu generating resources, we cut newshole and we invest in the unproven digital side. Advertisers have told us thst they have no interest in digital. Our answer? "yes you do and here is what we will do...." We are an arrogant company that is given up on what we stand for. It is not about growing anymore, it is all about expense savings.
3:19--Those are the numbers for everything--Westchester, Rockland, Putnam etc... They have been printing everything out of White Plains for several years now. To give you an idea...In 1999 the Sunday Circ in Rockland County only---was 155,000 !
ReplyDelete@4:17~ For the other readers here, it's one paper, the Journal News. There have not been separate flags since 1998. The 10 flags had strong branding and loyalty (even though local news was watered down to six regions by 1998.) Just proves that management can destroy a product because they can't see beyond the end of their noses.
ReplyDeleteThe plunge in circulation at the White Plains, N.Y.-based Journal News becomes even more alarming when put in the context of the total population of 1.3 million in the three counties the paper serves.
ReplyDeleteThe Journal News covers 3 counties, it does well in Rockland County, it does O.K. in Putnam County and it does poorly in Westchester County
ReplyDeleteDo you get a pension when you start working for Gannett, or do you have to work there five years? Also, any idea how much the company annually contributes to the pension?
ReplyDeleteAs of August 2008 you are on your own for retirement planning with Gannett. The existing pension plan was frozen, meaning there will be no more $$$ added to the plan. If you were vested (3 years) then anything in the plan as of August 2008 is yours when it is the right time to take it. To counter the frozen pension plan, The 401k match was 50 cents on each dollar invested up to 6%. As of August 2008 it is a better deal (if you like the Gannett stock as your match). Now the plan pays $1 for every $1 invested up to the first 5%. As much as I dislike the Gannett stock as a match, DO IT !!! This plan equals $2 for each of your $$ invested. Just move it immediately out of Gannett stock.
ReplyDeleteWhen I left the company there were some tough times, but one thing that worked like clockwork was information on my vested pension benefit. Like Tim mentioned, I rolled the cash over into an IRA. It was all professionally handled without a hitch.
ReplyDeleteI heard layoffs were coming in two weeks for The Tennessean, but not sure what department or how many will be affected. Anyone heard of this?
ReplyDeleteUp to 15% in more cuts are coming. Many operating committees met for up to 4 hours this afternoon going over options / alternatives.
ReplyDeleteI'm so glad Gracia is running this company. NOT!
When is someone. When is the board going to stand up to her and stop this nonsense. So sad, that Gracia was allowed to destroy a once proud company - and is getting paid handsomely to eradicate employees who have given their lives to Gannett.
11:16 am: I'm not surprised that Gannett is losing 50+ year subscribers. I am a former employee who reads two newspapers every day. You'd think one of them would be my local paper, wouldn't you? But the Daily Times, my local Salisbury (Md.) paper, is so thin and so devoid of anything useful that I never read it unless I see a copy in a waiting room somewhere. Instead, I subscribe to the Washington Post and the Wall Street Journal.
ReplyDeleteMy parents in Des Moines, who have subscribed to the Register for 45 years, are also getting close to dropping it because it is simply no longer worth the asking price.
4:16 PM - Exactly the problem with pushing the local advertisers to the web. Why would I, say a local hardware store, want to compete with 1 million other stores on the web? I would rather compete in my local area by advertising in my local paper.
ReplyDelete