The board of directors will likely pay top executives millions of dollars more in bonuses this year, in part for making employees take unpaid furloughs during the current quarter, company documents show.Last year, for example, the board specifically cited furlough savings as a reason to award $3.5 million
"The company achieved substantial expense reductions through a variety of efforts," the board's four-member executive compensation committee told shareholders on March 18, "including continued centralization and consolidation efforts, significant headcount reductions, furloughs, and salary freezes and reductions."
Community newspaper division President Bob Dickey, for one, got a $410,000 bonus as part of his $1.9 million in overall 2009 compensation. It was Dickey who yesterday announced the latest round of furloughs for most of GCI's approximately 25,000 workers at 81 U.S. dailies. They exclude two papers that aren't in the community division: USA Today and the Detroit Free Press.
Fourth furlough round
Bonuses and other details about executive pay for 2010 are expected to be announced in mid-March.
These are the fourth mandatory unpaid leaves the company has announced over the past two years. The current round, which ends March 27, also is the third consecutive first quarter in which GCI has required furloughs, a worrisome sign that the company is now locked in a cycle of early year cost cutting amid continued declines in revenue.
In the first quarter of 2010, the company saved $13 million via furloughs; in the first quarter of 2009, it was even more: $20 million.
A history
2009. GCI launched a one-week, unpaid furlough across all U.S. divisions during the first quarter. Another furlough followed in the second quarter; that one, also for most U.S. divisions, called for one unpaid week for most employees, and a second week for other, more highly paid workers.
2010. The U.S. newspaper division, Corporate and some other divisions were furloughed for one week, during the first quarter.
Any executive who takes a penny of a bonus in exchange for shredding jobs and adding on furloughs for the rest of the rank/file is morally bankrupt, plain and simple.
ReplyDeleteThe fact that these people are rewarded for inflicting hardship on their employees is all the proof you need of what a horrible company this is to work for.
ReplyDeleteBeautiful!
ReplyDeleteLet's keep in mind that the workers are not real people to Gannett's executive suite and Board of Directors.
The workers are viewed as expenses, while the execs, for some inexplicable reason, are viewed as assets.
It's absolutely amazing that executives like Dickey, Martore and Dubow (did I get the order right?) can be awarded bonuses for laying people off. Of course they also devised the Centers of Excellence and Design Studios, but any recent savings came from payroll reductions.
I can't grasp what the heck is on the minds of the directors. They're certainly not looking after the interests of the shareholders.
I can't believe this is even legal. Of course it is, but it surely isn't right. A bonus should be a reward for a job well done, like getting a share of the profits you helped bring in. But Gannett is hemorrhaging cash. So instead of holding back bonuses to motivate these "leaders" to succeed, they are rewarding their failures. This is the worst kind of slap in the face for the hard-working journalists at Gannett. Their sacrifices are lining the pockets of people who don't deserve it.
ReplyDeleteWhat a hopelessly out-of-touch group of people these pocket-lining directors are. Time for a bailout. Any Gannett employee with any ability or promise should bail out now and go to work for another company. Almost any other company would be better than Gannett.
ReplyDeleteGannett should tighten its budget not through furloughs but by firing its most incompetent staff.
ReplyDeleteSo start with the Glass Palace crowd who furiously bought back company stock a few years ago at -- what? $60 a share?
How'd that work out?
It's the corporate way. We bitch when we pay $3.29 for gasoline. But we love it when our 401K speculates in commodities and pays us a 10 percent return for driving up energy trades. The market has no compassion. It is ruthless.
ReplyDeleteIt just insults my intelligence to see top executives now taking a one week pay cut or furlough in this quarter. They'll just make that money back plus more in a bonus. Some of them are basically getting a one week paid vacation.
ReplyDeleteThis makes perfect sense. Pigs will continue to feed at the trough even if they have to slog through shit to get there. Animals can't help themselves.
ReplyDeleteWhat despicable people this gang is.
ReplyDeletei had 12 years with Gannett, lost my job in July of 2009!i was just wondering how many ads those 4 people sold??? what a joke!
ReplyDeleteOne more reason anyone working for Gannett should quit. It's not about good journalism or readers. It's about fattening the pockets of already fat executives. This is just sick.
ReplyDeleteReprehensible is every way possible.
ReplyDeleteThis is precisely what the New York Times did last year. Management screwed employees of the Times, Boston Globe and International Herald Tribune, then took the savings as bonuses for themselves.
ReplyDeleteGod love'em.
The practice of rewarding the highly paid executives at the expense of the employees n the front line who are actually bringing in the revenue and living from pay check to pay check is amoral. Gannett has had the habit of whipping the willing horse for years. Thank God I left 12 years ago.
ReplyDeleteSeriously? That just makes me want to throw up. I'm so glad that my family has to have a harder time financially so these wonderful human beings can get millions of dollars of money that they obviously don't need or deserve.
ReplyDeleteInstead of just griping about it on this blog, y'all need to DO something about it.
ReplyDeleteBut if I type more about what should be done, my post wlll be removed by the Administrator...
...and thus, the cycle continues...
I agree 100 percent 4:12. We're all ears. What can be done about it? The senior officers are accountable to the board. But the board maintains a conflict of interest in keeping the senior officers fat and happy at the expense of employees. That conflict, however, appears common in corp America and doesn't seem to violate any actual laws.
ReplyDeleteOther than a mass shareholder revolt, there seems to be no 'check' upon the senior officers/board actions. Unless I'm missing something. And I don't sense that there's any kind of shareholder revolt brewing. Mainly just shareholders shirking their collective shoulders, concluding 'Gannett is as Gannett does ...'
Three cheers for diversity because having minority and female representation on that committee sure changes the results compared to what four white guys would do.
ReplyDeleteI am a newspaper veteran but have never worked for Gannett. As an owner that ran my own publishing company, I didn't pay myself for months so my employees could get paid. The company has since closed and I have been unemployed for several months. It sickens me to see Gannett's executives take those bonuses instead of paying the people who make the company money. I sacrificed and now what do I have to show for it? Nothing, but you know what I'm still happy. Everything will work out in the end.
ReplyDeleteAll Gannett employees should pick a day and strike. Then you will see if management can sell ads. Lol. No, seriously. Strike for one day in protest of those bonuses and show management who really brings in the company's revenue.
I know many employees would be afraid to do such a thing, but from what I've seen many ex-Gannett employees seem happier. Why not take a shot then?
Disgusting.
ReplyDeleteI guess it's difficult for them to see the irony when they have big, green, flashing dollar signs in their eyes.
The board and the executives throughout the company have sold their souls. They are, indeed, morally corrupt. You don't make money off the misfortune of your employees. Won't anybody from the boardroom or the executive offices stand up for what is right?
ReplyDeleteMakes you wonder if capitalism actually works.
ReplyDeleteThank you, Jim, for your reporting.
Can't the states which are strapped for cash and are now looking at paying unemployment to furloughed Gannett empolyees investigate the company for some type of fraud if the company takes the money saved due to furloughs and give it the Gang of Four? They're saying we're being furloughed because the company isn't making money. If the money saved from furloughs gets handed to the top execs in bonuses, aren't taxpayers being defrauded? Is there an Andrew Cuomo style Attorney General out there willing to look at this aspect? Taxpayers are being fleeced by these four greedy "people".
ReplyDeleteThis is class warfare. Plain and simple.
ReplyDeleteHow about selling the company jet?
ReplyDeleteA few months ago (I think during Q3 of 2010), a bunch of Gannett execs flew on the jet to Reno and stayed in a resort. A member of the newsroom had to meet the execs at the airport to handle their luggage. I guess the execs weren't able or willing to wheel their own suitcases or push a luggage cart. They were only in town 2 or 3 days so how heavy could their bags have been?
The execs then came to the newspaper for an afternoon visit and gave speeches about how great the company is doing, financially and otherwise. Layoffs took place during Q4 and furloughs are taking place now.
I'm not against execs traveling. But instead of what they did, one or two of them (instead of a half dozen) could have come via commercial airline (est. $300 per person round trip from Baltimore/Washington to Reno) and stayed in a reasonably-priced hotel with plenty of amenities for much less than the cost of a personal pilot and jet fuel necessary to get across the country.
"Three cheers for diversity because having minority and female representation on that committee sure changes the results compared to what four white guys would do."
ReplyDeleteDiversity like the NFL's Rooney Rule, which, in that case, actually works. Minorities are winning Super Bowls (Dungy, Tomlin).
Sardakis was one of those top execs who got paid, thanks to the Furloughs. That's the brainiac who got paid and fled.
ReplyDeleteI used my two furlough weeks in 2009 to job hunt like a maniac. It's been a year since I worked in a Gannett newsroom and I'm amazed every day by how much better my life is now.
ReplyDeleteBecause you legally can't do any work for the company during your furlough, DO IT FOR YOURSELF.
Shame on you, top management.
ReplyDeleteHow dare you award yourselves bonuses after imposing furloughs, layoffs, and paltry pay increases (if any) for Gannett workers!
You are truly morally bankrupt.
Everyone should take 9:47's advice.
ReplyDeleteThe decision of this compensation board proves one thing: white people, black people, men and women can all make outrageously bad decisions. Stupidity has no color!
ReplyDeleteWhen Craig Dubow visited the Phoenix Town Hall Dog and Pony Show....err pep rally, and the President of the protesting pressman's union asked him about the proposed pay cut,(shortly after announcing the end of the pay freeze) he replied, that he is not asking anything that he hasn't done himself. My Question is, Then where is my bonus?
ReplyDeleteAhh yes. Am I surprised? No. It's just corporate America. And it won't change unless the underlings do things en masse to make it change.
ReplyDeleteWe all need to wake up to this reality. Because until we do, things will not change in the corporate world. Why shoud it? The CEOs routinely get away with such things. People get mad, vent online, then just wait for it to happen again. Why should the bosses enact change? There's nothing to require it. Why shouldn't they continue to feed at OUR trough, crowding us out in the process?
Looks like Jim used stealth to correct the bonus amount in the original article.
ReplyDeleteRemember that this isn't just happening in the states. Here in the UK we're being 'encouraged' to take furloghs. It happened in 2009 and we're just about to be given the "times are tough" speech all over again.
ReplyDeleteFurloughs are a death spiral. If you do it this quarter, you go against those cuts next period and next year. You can never catch up to it without revenue gains, which seem dubious at best.
ReplyDelete