Staff Uproar at the New York Times; More Than 400 Sign
Public Open Letter of "Profound Dismay" with Management

* New York Times Staffers Express 'Profound Dismay' With
Management (Michael Calderone in Huffington Post)
* An Open Letter to Arthur Sulzberger Jr

=====

New York Times Staffers Express 'Profound Dismay' With
Management

by Michael Calderone

Huffington Post
December 26, 2011

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/12/26/new-york-times-arthur-sulzberger-letter_n_1170401.html

New York Times staffers unhappy with management are letting
publisher Arthur Sulzberger Jr. know it. In recent days,
more than 270 current and former Times employees have signed
an open letter expressing their "profound dismay" with
recent company decisions.

Bill O'Meara, president of the New York Newspaper Guild,
said some staffers had considered even "more dramatic"
actions.

"There were people who wanted to storm Arthur Sulzberger's
office," O'Meara told The Huffington Post. "There were
people who wanted to stage a walkout."

For now, Times staffers opted for the letter, which was
composed in the newsroom and posted online by the guild at
saveourtimes.com. Since last week, hundreds of current
staffers -- from metro reporters to foreign correspondents,
arts critics to web producers -- and several Times alumni
have continued adding their names.

The letter calls attention to several grievances. Last week,
Times brass notified foreign citizens employed in the
paper's overseas bureaus that their pensions would be
frozen. In the letter, Times staffers dismayed by this
decision point out to Sulzberger that some of these foreign
employees, working alongside Times reporters in war zones,
have "risked their lives so that we can do our jobs."

The open letter may have been prompted by this and other
recent decisions, but it brought to the surface long-
simmering tensions. In the past several years, staffers have
faced temporary pay cuts, layoffs, and buyouts. They have
worked since March without a new contract. Regarding ongoing
negotiations, the letter notes that Sulzberger's
"negotiators have demanded a freeze of our pension plan and
an end to our independent health insurance." O'Meara said
staffers did not receive a raise this year.

Such compensation and benefit issues are playing out while
the Times faces a problem with retention, as executive
editor Jill Abramson acknowledged when she landed the
paper's highest-ranking masthead job last June. The Times,
which could once keep high-profile reporters and editors
from heading to rival newspapers based on the paper's cachet
alone, has recently faced increased competition for top
talent from non-traditional outlets, such as Bloomberg News,
ESPN, and The Huffington Post.

The letter also mentions that a member of "senior
management" is now leaving with "a very generous severance
and retirement package, including full pension benefits."
Indeed, outgoing CEO Janet Robinson -- the unnamed
executive-- will reportedly take home a $15 million exit
package, according to Reuters. Times staffers with stock
options have seen the share price drop from over $35 at the
beginning of Robinson's tenure in 2003 to less than $8 at
opening on Tuesday.

A Times spokeswoman told The Huffington Post that the paper
is "not commenting on the negotiations while they are
ongoing but we continue to look forward to reaching
agreement with the guild."

O'Meara said he hopes to present the letter and signatures
to Times management at the end of the week. The guild also
plans to post comments from some of the Times staffers who
signed the letter, after he obtains their permission. "Many
people wrote powerful, moving comments," he said. "We want
to make sure they're OK putting it out there."

One such comment, O'Meara said, included pictures of Sultan
M. Munadi and Khalid Hassan, two Times foreign employees
killed in Afghanistan and Iraq, respectively.

==========

An Open Letter to Arthur Sulzberger Jr
http://www.saveourtimes.com/

	
December 23, 2011

Dear Arthur:

We, the Guild leadership and many reporters, editors,
account managers and other Times employees, Guild members
and otherwise, are writing to express profound dismay at
several recent developments.

Our foreign citizen employees in overseas bureaus have just
had their pensions frozen with only a week's warning. Some
of these people have risked their lives so that we can do
our jobs. A couple have even lost them. Many have spent
their entire careers at the Times -- indeed, some have
letters from your father explaining the pension system --
and deserve better treatment.

At the same time, your negotiators have demanded a freeze of
our pension plan and an end to our independent health
insurance.

We ask you to withdraw these demands so that negotiations on
a new contract can proceed fruitfully and expeditiously. We
also urge you to reconsider the decision to eliminate the
pensions of the foreign employees.

We have worked long and hard for this company and have given
up pay to keep it solvent. Some of us have risked our lives
for it. You have eloquently recognized and paid moving
tribute to our work and devotion. The deep disconnect
between those words and the demands of your negotiators have
given rise to a sense of betrayal.

One of our colleagues in senior management recently
announced her retirement from the paper, which is reported
to include a very generous severance and retirement package,
including full pension benefits.

All of us who work at the Times deserve to have a secured
retirement; this should not be a privilege cynically
reserved to senior management. We strongly urge you to keep
faith with your words and our shared mission of putting out
the best newspaper in the world.

Signed,

[list of signers at: http://www.saveourtimes.com/ ]

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