Wednesday, April 04, 2012

Urgent: Q2 furloughs ordered for USAT, GPS staff; memo: 'business conditions continue to be mixed'

The following memo was distributed early this afternoon to employees of USA Today and Gannett Publishing Services, the subsidiary that handles printing, distribution and other functions for Gannett's 82 U.S. newspapers.

USA Today has about 1,400 employees; GPS has 7,700. Combined, that's about 30% of GCI's 31,000 worldwide employees.

These furloughs come just after more than 20,000 employees at the other U.S. dailies completed one-week furloughs in the first quarter.



From: USA Today Executive VP and GM
Sent: Wednesday, April 04, 2012 12:47 PM
Subject: Announcement

To: USA Today and Gannett Publishing Services Employees

From: Susie Ellwood, Executive Vice President, USA Today
Evan Ray, President, Gannett Publishing Services (GPS)

We have just completed the first quarter and reviewed our financial projections for the second quarter. While your hard work and initiative have helped strengthen and grow our company, the bottom line is that business conditions continue to be mixed and the national advertising environment remains volatile.

Toward that end, we have decided to implement one week furloughs across USA Today, USA Weekend and Gannett Publishing Services in the second quarter.

The furlough will impact all USA Today and USA Weekend employees, except for those in the following groups: Sports Media Group, Travel Media Group and direct sales staff and management within USA Today and USA Weekend Advertising.

The furlough also will impact most GPS employees. A minimum salary level has been set and your supervisor or Human Resources partner will notify you if you will be affected by this furlough. Non-union GPS employees in certain income brackets will be furloughed for five business days. Where furloughs are not already provided for in our collective bargaining agreements, we will ask union representatives for their support of the furloughs as well.

For those required to take a furlough, exempt, salaried employees must take one full payroll week within the pay period. Non-exempt, hourly employees will also take five days at any pre-approved time -- although the days do not need to be consecutive. All furloughs must be complete by June 24. The attached FAQ should answer any questions you may have.

We know furloughs are difficult for you and your families, and our management teams do not take these actions lightly. The furloughs, however, will help us navigate through challenging headwinds and allow us to invest in future growth opportunities.

We appreciate and sincerely thank everyone throughout the organizations for your efforts to drive top-line revenue growth. Your work is reshaping our company and our industry in important ways now and for the future.

As always, please feel free to email either of us with any questions or comments.

Regards,
Susie and Evan

Related: No Q2 furloughs for U.S. Community Publishing, according to a memo posted by a reader here.

59 comments:

  1. When's Broadcast, Newsquest and Gannett Aviation & Nursing's turn?

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  3. And then there was this one...
    To: All USCP Employees From:Bob Dickey, President of U.S. Community Publishing (USCP)
    As we move into the second quarter, there is good news to share: Many of you have asked about potential second quarter furloughs. I am happy to announce USCP will not institute furloughs in the second quarter. We do not foresee any additional furloughs for the rest of 2012.
    We have decided to forgo furloughs so everyone can continue to focus on implementing their new subscription model. We are very encouraged by the first-wave rollouts of the new content subscription model, which are performing at expected levels. Your colleagues are embracing the new subscription model being rolled out across USCP this year. Everyone plays an important role in driving the success of this initiative at their local site. To stabilize our business and position us for future growth, we all must remain focused on executing our strategies: to drive digital revenues, stabilize print revenues, develop our passion topics, build audiences across all platforms and promote our new subscription model.
    Please be aware, however, that our colleagues at USA TODAY and Gannett Publishing Services today announced second-quarter furloughs.
    In closing, it is important that we take this opportunity to also recognize the important contributions made by many of our long-term employees who recently accepted early voluntary retirement offers. Their efforts over the years have contributed a great deal to our company and the communities we serve. They will be missed and we wish them well.
    Regards,
    Bob Dickey

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  4. What about Clipper Magazine? Are they special?

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  5. Everyone should have know it was coming. It won't be the last furlough of the year either.

    Keep those resumes update!

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  6. What's funny here NOT, is all of the areas of USAT that have nothing to show for their work are exempt from furlough. I'm sure each of them working an additional 5 days will generate millions by the end of the quarter--NOT.

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  7. Could someone at USA TODAY fix the links at the bottom of the page - the reporter index doesn't work. With all the furloughs who's going to be around in the future for basic maintenance of this stuff. It's just disgusting!

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  8. Jesus christ this place is fucked up.

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  9. It is an ugly and divisive trend that USAT would exempt from furlough (as in exempt from suffering a pay cut) all those advertising sales reps.

    Ironically it is likely the poor performance by these very reps that has led to the furloughs in the first place.

    Of course we all know that that NO furloughs are really necessary. These publications are profitable... just not profitable enough for the greed that is Gannett.

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  11. Sports Media Group exempt because....why? They'll make cuts proportionate to savings in 2nd q salaries?

    How about FIRING all non essential people instead?

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  12. If only USA today offered trips to Tahiti to its ad reps. There'd be no need for furloughs.

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  13. I guess this means Hunke will be making more stupid, useless hires pretty soon.

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  14. Hey Gannett, KISS MY ASS. Tahiti trips, stock buybacks, and buyouts, that's the final straw folks. I'm not working 1 stinkin minute past 37.5 hours, I'm not checking email at night, and I'm not eating mileage anymore to keep it under budget. God I can't wait to get out of this shithole.

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  15. And remember, this company makes a profit of $1 million every day.

    Think about that while going without pay for a week.

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  16. Hunke, do something useful for everyone. Just leave. Take all your brilliant vice presidents with you.

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  17. Hunke, do something useful for everyone. Just leave. Take all your brilliant vice presidents with you.

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  18. I work for a company that, given a choice, will buy back its stock before it pays employees the wages that it promised them.

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  19. Mark my words: USA Today will cease to exist as a print newspaper sometime in 2012.

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  20. I think you are correct about the paper's print future. Incredibly, Hunke is bent on killing it.

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  21. You are correct: What company wastes hundreds of millions of dollars buying back stock while stiffing its employees out of their paychecks? One led by greedy executives who want to boost stock price, and their options and holdings. Temporarily boost, that is.

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  22. Management exempts itself from this furlough.

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    1. I love guys like you. Swear, threaten and promise but come next year you will still be here. Guaranteed

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  24. Why is it the the corporate staff that is not part of one of the divisions does not have to take furlough. Kind of ironic that the people that do not make any money whatsoever are exempt.

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    1. I work at corporate and had to take a furlough last quarter. Just because you don't know about it doesn't mean it didnt happen

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  25. What do you drooling button pushing press ops think of that we don't need you any longer. Know go get a job sweeping floors.

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  26. 5:21: If the Sports Media Group was furloughed, too many people would miss their appointment to reapply for a job. Wait for the Q4, post-Olympic makeup furlough.

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  28. furloughs or no furloughs I miss our Gannett days in Tulsa. I would take it all back.

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  30. No one promised you anything, 7:02, but your point about the stock buy back is wel taken. This company does lots of petty things to cut costs and save pennies. yet it's the staggering amount management spends on dartboard dreams and outside wannabes saviors is what's truly insane.
    Combine that with the morale busting lack of common sense, paltry message skills and general lack of regard for anyone outside the clique, and most of us are fucked.

    Maybe an extra week off may be good for everyone's well being, despite the financial hardship.

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  31. First of all I am not surprised at all but still......WOW!! no shame whatsoever at taking money out of the working mans pocket and lining theirs no shame and total arrogance

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  32. It looks like getting rid of USAT's top advertising and circulation folks is working as well as they had hoped. No surprise to me that revenue tanked.

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  33. Here's how messed up things are at USAT: We found out about our furlough from USCP people who relayed word after reading Dickey's memo. USAT managers were clueless. Ellwood's memo came hours later.

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  34. It's over fools.

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  35. You usat'ers are cowards. You don't speak up when you should. You don't support your hard-working coworkers, particularly if they aren't management favorites. And then you whine when they dip into your wallet or take away some perk. You're spoiled and only concerned about yourselves, not the state of a once honorable profession or the plight of those lost in the recession. You are outraged by having to reapply for your jobs, but don't give a second thought to those whose careers and lives were ruined by the same people you sick up to with no shame. Slowly but surely, your silence, your lack of courage in the past, is coming back late to haunt you. You have allowed bullies to gain strength. You have bought into lie after lie. As long as you could keep your job, sticking your heads in the sand hasn't been a problem. So please, the drama about furloughs is a joke. Do what you always do...whisper about it on the terrace and keep hoping that your safe. Don't organize. Don't stand up or stick together. And pray you can make it to retirement before usat'ers execs come for you.

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  36. 9:52 how are you fighting the good fight?

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  37. When was the last time usat had a furlough?

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  38. Usat covers the news at a glacial pace. Not surprised they found out in the sticks before us.

    Meetings and staying in their offices. Nobody does it better than this stooges.

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  39. This will happen again and again since they have employees conditioned to furloughs. It is like FREE MONEY. You get a pay cut and some VIP gets a bonus.

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  40. What has been the minimum salary level in the past?$90K? I'm hoping my GPS friends left at my old site are exempt from this round.

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  41. 8:13, FYI, using ongoing furloughs as a de facto method of cutting salaries is illegal. Some of people above making legal threats might want to have their attorneys look into this. Gannett says they are using furloughs so they won't have get rid of people but they shedding people at an increasing rate. A class action lawsuit would really stir things up now.

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  42. Gannett is perfectly lawyered up, so I doubt ongoing furloughs are illegal. Even the stunt they pulled last time -- rewarding Dubow & Co. millions in bonuses for saving the company money by extracting it from employees via furloughs -- was no doubt legal.

    Was it moral? Did it show a sense of fair play and "we're all in this together"? Guess that doesn't matter as long as the i's are dotted and the t's are crossed.

    Morale worsened exponentially when we all realized that our financial sacrifices were not for the company and our own livelihood, but for the executives, who for sure weren't hurting to begin with.

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  43. This just heard from Crystal Palace insider:

    -- Discussions about furlough shifted into high gear after speculation leaked out on ideas and proposals on this blog;
    -- Gracia opted for 2Q furloughs for USAT and GPS after Bob argued that his sites can't be expected to roll out new content strategies and the paywalls and still go forward with Q3 furloughs. It was also noted that USAT and GPS haven't been hit as hard or as often as USCP (a bit of a false argument, since GPS is so new);
    -- Legal tabled (with a "let's spend some time mulling this over") the idea of changing how furloughs could be structured (called "flexible unpaid leave"), which prompted Bob to push for permission to send USCP employees a note saying that furloughs are not planned for the rest of the year.
    -- Sites still have Q3 furlough savings in their budgets, however. But some sites realized more buyout/retirement savings than anticipated. So this means by not taking Q3 furloughs, some sites will be fine, some sites will not, but on the whole, we should be OK.

    Don't ever let folks tell you, Jim, that they ain't reading this blog. They do and, when you piss them off enough, they do something.

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  44. I just received the sad news from my husband that we will have this second furlough this year. It saddens me that we are the ones who scrape by each month and are asked to take another one. The whole system at his work is frightening. You are asked to take a furlough, but then they turn around and pay you overtime because they don't have enough staff to complete the jobs when someone is off that week. Does not make much sense to me. Do the big wigs really need a bonus at the cost of putting the middle class worker at a hardship? This industry is becoming scarier and scarier by the day.

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  45. 2:20 - Do what I did and tell your husband to start looking for another job. They are out there. It's just a matter of time.

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  46. Flexible Unpaid Leave doesn't quite roll off the tongue, but what do lawyers know?

    I suggest they call pitch it to the unwary masses as the far snappier "FU Leave."

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  47. One more week off, sounds good to me. I hate working for Gannett and this gives me a week to look for a job and interviews. F GPS and Evan Ray

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  48. Seriously Gannet employees need to unionize! My company had furloughs, layoffs, etc but we recently unionized and even though that won't prevent layoffs we have so much more protection. Minimum salaries, any furloughs would need to be approved/negotiated with the union, we have severance written in our contracts so if if we are laid off it won't be with nothing, etc etc. So worth it on many fronts.

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  49. I am so glad GCI big wigs get millions they deserve it. If it wasnt for any of them you all would be out of a job. They saved this company from going under back in 2010. I am just waiting for the company to be bought from private investors once the debt hits a level of less than one billion. Then I will make even more money the execs will get theirs and you all will be fired. Hence my attitude I am a personal investor and could care less about you low life employees. Cheers.

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  50. Following are some speedy ideas and guidelines you can use to evaluate your present business model and lead generation routines.

    Lake Norman HOA Management

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  51. WAKE UP USAT CRONIE'S
    ALL non union shop's should start looking for union's to join...It's against the law to be fired for trying... There will be furloughs every quater now..even though you have to work overtime to cover for furlough's....stupidity..

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  52. Well people...what can you Do???
    Work Slow Down,,,work qaulity goes down hill...call in sick at the worst times...join a union...stop taking it lying Down...Mainly...Look for a better job....

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  53. Happy Easter and Passover everyone at USA Today. Good timing on the furlough announcement. As usual.

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  54. Someone book Maryam for the next Generation Furlough summit.

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  55. If you're put on a one-week furlough, can you open an unemployment claim? The first week would be the UE "waiting week" but if G furloughs again within the year, would be eligible to collect UE benefit?

    Anyone have information on this?

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  56. Gosh - The Springfield plant has gone down the tubes. Incompetence on every level leading to employee misery. Management breeding intimidation and cronyism for decades.

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