Wednesday, August 25, 2010

Has your site just frozen OT or cut other costs?

A long-time Gannett Blog reader at a mid-sized Gannett newspaper says their boss has recently frozen overtime and slashed the budget for contract work. From another reader, I know this daily's revenues have fallen more than expected, and that its group president is none too happy about the paper's performance.

Still, maybe this is part of a broader trend. Has the budget been cut during recent weeks at your Gannett site? What types of cuts were made, and what explanation was given?

Please post your replies in the comments section, below. To e-mail confidentially, write jimhopkins[at]gmail[dot-com]; see Tipsters Anonymous Policy in the rail, upper right.

9 comments:

  1. OT isn't frozen because hiring is frozen. We're down so many people that we can't get work done without OT.

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  2. I work in production at a small (20K circulation daily)paper, Over time is non-existent unless there is a major equipment failure.

    People are just making their 40hr/wk, sometimes padding their time cards with vacation time. This has been the norm for sometime now.

    Circulation is down from 30k 3 years ago. When someone leaves they are not always replaced.

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  3. In an e-mail, a reader says this of two nearby Gannett papers on the East Coast: "I was just told . . . that the last full-time janitors . . . are being laid off. There will be one floating full-time maintenance man between the two facilities."

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  4. Ad count seems down. July normally is slow and then August picks up a bit for back to school, but August has seemed flat compared to July's workload.

    If it weren't for a bunch of ridiculous special sections thrown against the wall, we'd be pretty slow.

    10,000 Dow, kiddies. See how many billboards are blank, how much remnant Ronnie Deutch fills up the TV screen. Ain't just us.

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  5. For the record I have worked overtime and have been paid for it. But, lots of times, now I don't get assignments that will take me over 40 hours.

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  6. Frozen OT and the 40 hour work week. We have request and show good reason if we think we might go over 37.5 prior to going over or we get a tongue lashing.

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  7. This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

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  8. I don't seem to have a problem getting paid overtime, when I work it of course. It's harder to get that extra time, but I have gotten it.

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  9. It's available but closely monitored. Big issue is failure to backfill a reporting position.

    ReplyDelete

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