Dodging the Pink Slip Club in the Star-Ledger Mailroom

Buyout-Depleted ‘Star-Ledger’ Reassigns Two Journos — To Mailroom 
By Joe Strupp 
Published: November 19, 2008 10:55 AM ET 

NEW YORK When a newspaper cuts its staff, those who remain in the depleted newsroom become valuable. But as The Star-Ledger of Newark, N.J. slowly says farewell to 151 newsroom folks who took buyouts last month, at least two longtime journalists have been reassigned to the mailroom.

Reporter Jason Jett and Assistant Deputy Photo Editor Mitchell Seidel have been filing, sorting, and delivering mail for more than a week, according to sources.

Jett and Seidel, who could not be reached for comment, apparently declined to take one of the buyouts offered this fall as part of a companywide move to cut costs.

Read more here. On the one hand, the mailroom’s a job. With benefits. On the other hand, the mailroom’s the entry point to a company, when, in days long gone, one could get a foot in the door and then move up.

Pink Slip Club: Even a Pulitzer can’t guarantee a reporting job

From The Reader’s Michael Miner in a post here:

On Wednesday the Tribune’s editor, Gerould Kern, and associate managing editor for national news Joycelyn Winnecke dropped in on the Washington bureau and laid (John) Crewdson off. They also laid off national correspondents Bay Fang and Stephen Hedges, national security correspondent Aamer Madhani, and, I’m told, a fifth Washington staffer who worked part-time.

At the same time, I hear, eight Washington staffers from the Los Angeles Times lost their jobs too.

As Chicago’s own Barack Obama prepares to move into the White House, Tribune journalistic talent is in increasingly short supply in Washington. Bureau chief Michael Tackett resigned last summer, and acting chief Naftali Bendavid quit the other day and is heading to the Wall Street Journal. Last week the Tribune Company appointedCissy Baker vice president of a consolidated Washington bureau serving the Tribune,the LA Times, and the rest of the company’s newspaper, broadcasting, and new media operations. Since 2003 she’d been a vice president of Tribune Broadcasting.

Crewdson won a Pulitzer in 1981 for his reporting while at The New York Times on illegal immigration. Hurry up and read his DC stuff for the Tribune here before they take it down.

Pink Slip Club: Chicago attorneys

Two Chicago law firms lay off attorneys, staff

By Ameet Sachdev Tribune staff reporter
1:37 PM CDT, October 16, 2008

Two Chicago law firms have fired attorneys this week, moves to cut cost during precarious economic times.

Sonnenschein Nath & Rosenthal let go about 24 lawyers across its practices and offices, according to an e-mail Chairman Elliott Portnoy sent out late Wednesday.

Katten Muchin Rosenman laid off 21 lawyers, partner Tasneem Goodman said in a statement.

The cuts come as their corporate clients hunker down amid the nation’s worst financial crisis in decades.

More here.

Pink Slip Club: GM

GM to lay off 1,600 workers at 3 factories
By TOM KRISHER, AP Auto Writer
DETROIT – Another 1,600 workers at three General Motors Corp. factories will be laid off indefinitely over the next few months as the company tries to control its inventory amid a worsening U.S. sales slump.

About 700 workers at GM’s pickup truck plant in Pontiac will be furloughed starting Feb. 1, while another 500 at the Detroit-Hamtramck sedan factory will be laid off starting Jan. 12, spokesman Chris Lee said Thursday. In addition, 400 workers at a two-seat sports car assembly plant in Wilmington, Del., also will be out of work starting Dec. 8.

The rest is here.

I talked to a certain local Ford union leader last week, and by talked, I mean listened to his stories while a foreign colleague fired away. His insights on how the car industry’s successes like the Ford Taurus were also its downfall as execs rested on their laurels instead of continuing to innovate. 

Pink Slip Club California

And in California:

State workers get work hours cut in half, others laid off in state budget mess

Story Updated: Aug 2, 2008

By Jose Gaspar

Denis Monsibais is an Examiner at the Bakersfield Department of Motor Vehicle office where she has worked for 19 years. Friday she and 8 other co-workers were sent home early after having worked half a day.

“I never thought it would come to this. We always got threats and this one really did come through,” said the mother of two.

Numerous state workers throughout Kern County have either been laid off or had their work hours reduced as a result of an Executive Order by Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger.

Statewide more than 10,000 part-time and seasonal workers lost their jobs. An additional 200,000 could have their pay cut to the federal minimum wage of $6.55 an hour with full salary reimbursed once a budget is signed.

Schwarzenegger said the move was necessary because legislators have failed to approve a state budget and the state needs to build up sufficient cash reserves to avoid a cash crisis in September.

But state workers question why they should be the ones to bear the brunt of the budget crisis.

Here’s the rest.

Pink Slip Club Nissan

Nissan moves to buyout Tennessee workers

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — Nissan North America Inc. said Wednesday it will offer buyouts to about 6,000 employees at the company’s two Tennessee plants and eliminate a night shift at one plant because rising fuel prices and the economic downturn have slowed sales of trucks and sport utility vehicles.

[...]

About 775 employees at the two plants took a buyout offered last year. That package included a $45,000 lump sum payment and $500 for every year of service.

Um, I’d work for that $45,000 lump sum buyout. And that’s the worse “voluntary severance offer” — seems the current one’s even sweeter.