Thursday, February 24, 2011

In 95 words, how Corporate says it laid you off

Fourth in a series of posts highlighting passages from the annual 10-K report, which Gannett filed yesterday with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.

Following is from management's list of accomplishments last year, one in which Corporate eliminated 2,400 jobs:

"Maximized the use and deployment of resources throughout the company. In 2010, the company continued its commitment to transforming its business activities, including more consolidation and centralization of functions that do not require a physical presence in each of the company’s markets. In this regard, the company has consolidated numerous production facilities and established centralized accounting, credit and collection functions which now serve nearly all domestic business operations. These efforts have achieved cost efficiencies and permitted improved local focus on content and revenue-producing activities and these efforts will continue to be aggressively pursued in 2011."

Work faster!
To be sure, Gannett isn't the only company with a history of speeding up assembly lines:

11 comments:

  1. Improved local emphasis on content? What emphasis? Total BS!

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  2. ANONYMOUS SAID... WESTCHESTER SITE DROP AND DROPING AND UNDERPROFORMING DEPT. TOP HEAVY AT MANGERMENT LEVEL TIME FOR CHANGE.

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  3. ANONYMOUS SAID... WESTCHESTER SITE CIRCULATION DEPT NEED TO ACCEPT BLAME. UNDERPROFORMING AND UNDERPROFORMING. HEAVY AT THE TOP LOOK AT IT. TIME FOR CHANGE IF YOU WANT PEOPLE TO TAKE YOU SERIOUS T.D

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  4. RTC charges for each image it tones. GPC charges for each ad it designs. I assume the page design center will charge for each page it builds. Does each site have to pay Gannett for accounting/credit collection services? Every time I read that Gannett has consolidation plans for a another department all I can think is "Gannett has figured out another way to squeeze even more money out of us."

    Forgive me if this is an elementary question but I don't know much about the relationship between corporate and the sites. What does Gannett as a corporation provide to the community papers that they couldn't provide for themselves if they were privately owned?

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  5. That is totally BS! I spend twice as much time babysitting ads from the GPC than I ever did when we had our own ad designers. The ads coming back from the GPC are inferior.

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  6. That's why every employee needs to take their time. You don't need a union to stage a slow down and take back some control.

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  7. That's why every employee needs to take their time. You don't need a union to stage a slow down and take back some control.

    ^^^^
    do you mean slow down performance? Unless it is done across the board good employees risk being let go if they fail to perform at 100 mph

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  8. I love I Love Lucy!

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  9. 10:51, what difference does it make? Everyone is headed for the door.

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  10. The pathetic thing about working at Westchester - might be like this elsewhere - is no matter how good a job a reporter or copy editor does, or how bad a job, the pay raise (when there is one) goes no more than one-half to 1 percent either way.

    You can bust your hump and get 2.5 percent, or you can do just enough to get by and get 2 percent.

    AND THEN, AFTER YOU PAY MORE FOR HEALTH INSURANCE, YOU'RE BACK TO SQUARE ONE. FIGURE IT OUT FOLKS! MOST OF US ARE WORKING FOR LESS THAN WE MADE FIVE YEARS AGO! FEW OF US GOT RAISES EVEN WHEN WE GOT RAISES!

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  11. @ 3:30: easy, pal. think about the unemployed gannettoids who would appreciate getting a 0 percent raise if they were still working. yes, it's tough, and the productivity of the rank and file still employed by GCI is increasingly absurd. but keep your head up. employees will regain "hand," if you get the "Seinfeld" reference. It's a cycle. And there are signs (a USAT/CNN poll shows the average raise for US workers was about 3 percent this past year, for example) we will recover. Regards.

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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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