"Federal and state laws require that employees, whether hourly or salaried, must not work while on an unpaid leave. That includes reading or responding to e-mails, calling or responding to calls from colleagues and being on site at your location at any time during your furlough days.
A furlough means you will not work.''
A furlough means you will not work.''
-- Gannett, in a Q&A today, confirming that about 35,000 U.S. employees must take one-week, unpaid vacations this quarter.
Notice that emergency clause, though.
ReplyDeleteI see this a prelude to determining just who is essential and who is not. Also, could this be the beginning of shortened work weeks for everyone?
Yeah right. Put employees between a rock and a hard place.
ReplyDeletebetter open up the comments
ReplyDeletecan't wait to see if Dubow gets another $1.75M bonus.
ReplyDeleteand instead of furloughs, couldn't the company probably save twice the money by cutting the dividend from .40 to a quarter.
Answering a call from work during your "furlough" should be avoided. It is a good way to stick it back to management. Secondly, as soon as the number shows up on caller-ID, you can consider their "furlough" offer as being rescinded (at least in NY, state-by-state laws vary, check yours out).
ReplyDeleteWe should start a Gannett Furlough Bar Crawl Q1 2009 day.
ReplyDeleteFirst, we need to pick a date.
Second, we need to pick a place.
plan your sick days around your co-workers furlough days
ReplyDeleteI would definitely tie a furlough to a *regular* vacation, if you have one, and see how much trouble you can cause with a short-notice, two-week absence.
ReplyDeleteGreat idea, 1:50!
ReplyDeleteDate: Today.
Place: Wisconsin. (lotsa bars.)
Oops, great idea, 1:46.
ReplyDelete2:10, it's a long way to the land of dairy cows, and whatever else you guys have up there, but for anyone in BIE (Binghamton-Ithaca-Elmira)... Tonight in Owego, the John Barleycorn. The code word is "skittles".
ReplyDelete1:26 pm - cutting dividend only saves the cash; furloughs saves the cash AND reduces expense.
ReplyDeleteIt will be kind of hard here. I am the only maint.person, the only production manager,The only building person. and have to already come in night and day because i am constantly called at night for some sort of repair. and and only have one warehouse person. cant wait to see howmany days a paper dosen't go out during my week
ReplyDeleteAt Cherry Hill we're not allowed to take two weeks vacation unless the EE approves.
ReplyDeleteIf this move doesn't reinvigorate broad interest in union representation, then little else will.
ReplyDeleteJust a curious question... at my location we do not turn computers or monitors off. How about anywhere else?
ReplyDeleteWould a cut in elecricity, and a cut of vacation pay for the managers, and eliminating a bonus for performance help with the current financial situation?
As much as I like vacations, I come to work here because I like the work I do. If you can't do your part of the job, namely to keep me in my job, then why do I have to take time off? If I could move over to a position to audit our expenses nationwide, I will gladly do it for twice what I make today (a big whopping $11/hr...).
This just seems like a "I give up" answer to our troubles.
In a no-byline story on the desmoinesregister.com Website today:
ReplyDeleteGannett Corp. will furlough almost all employees for one week in the first quarter as a way to avoid more layoffs, the company announced Wednesday.
About 800 full- and part-time employees at the Des Moines Register, Iowa City Press-Citizen and the Register’s weekly papers must take one week without pay as part of the program. Union-represented employees are not included, but the company will ask the union accept the furloughs.
“This is an extraordinarily difficult economic time, not only for our business but for all industries. I know that a furlough is a personal burden for employees,” said Laura Hollingsworth, president and publisher of the Des Moines Register. “But it does allow us the opportunity to avoid layoffs while we assess economic trends beyond this volatile first quarter of 2009.”
Gannett cut about 10 percent of its workforce in December, and the Register cut 60 jobs, including 41 layoffs.
-----
I wasn't aware there were any union employees at the Des Moines Register.
2:08 -- now you people are thinking!
ReplyDeleteScrew the suits as much as you can, especially you folks without the (fading) protection of a union contract.
God bless ya all!
Bosses at the Des Moines Regster will not be calling emplyees on furlough. In fact, all DMR employees were sternly reminded not to correspond with the newspaper in any way during the furlough or the 5 day furlough would be lifted and have to be restarted at a later date. They are very aware of the law and want the furloughs to pass asap. Of course more layoffs are still a very real possibility.
ReplyDeleteMy response to my boss calling would be, "Piss. Off."
ReplyDeleteWhat to say if your boss calls during your furlough:
ReplyDelete"Bite me. Have a nice day!"
Everyone should look into the unemployment laws in their state. In Ohio if you have to take your furlough as one full week it might be a good idea to apply for the benefit so you can get unemployment money if there is another furlough, or skip the one week waiting period if you are laid off. Not a pleasant situation to think about, but it has to be done. Personally, I'm just struggling to wrap my head around how I'm going to pay my rent.
ReplyDeleteIn the office today, we talked about doing a 'senior skip day.' I don't think the old-timers would be brave enough.
ReplyDeleteHere's a novel idea I highly doubt anyone running Gannett into the ground has considered: why not fire the weakest employees, like other businesses have to, instead of getting rid of people wholesale? Why do something as wholly unfair as forcing everyone to donate half a pay check when you could just as easily axe that guy who reads magazines at his desk all day?
Or stares at his picture on the SPJ Web site?
ReplyDeleteThe same insecure sucks ups who brag about working for free will spend that forced week off working---and then they'll come on here and bitch about the people who followed the furlough memo to a T. Just watch.
ReplyDeleteI'm predicting this fiasco will be just what's needed to seal the deal on past and future labor law complaints and investigations.
Document. Document. Document.