Los Angeles Occasions Administration despatched buyout provides this week to a small group of staff that the paper’s union say “egregiously” violate worker contracts, Oliver Darcy reported Wednesday.
In accordance with Darcy, the staffers in query, largely newsroom veterans, had volunteered to simply accept buyouts throughout an earlier collection of cuts. They got simply 48 hours to determine whether or not or to not settle for, a proposal LA Occasions guild chair Matt Hamilton mentioned in a memo to members was “rushed/botched” and likewise “egregiously violates our contract.”
Hamilton additionally mentioned that administration didn’t notify the guild of of the buyout provides as required by the present contract, and worse that the provides have been “roughly half of what choose members have been entitled to,” Darcy reported.
Representatives for the LA Occasions Union didn’t instantly reply to a request for remark from TheWrap. Representatives for the Los Angeles Occasions additionally didn’t instantly reply.
This all comes amid a brutal yr for the storied west coast paper, which has been beset by a collection of layoffs and buyouts, in addition to an ideological shift mandated by billionaire proprietor Patrick Quickly-Shiong.
In early might, 14 staffers have been let go, with Carrillo Peñaloza, an assistant editor on the breaking information group, artwork director Susana Sanchez and investigative reporter Ben Poston among the many casualties.
In march, dozens of staff in operations and communications sections have been let go, a culling that got here shortly after 40 newsroom staff accepted buyouts. These cuts got here after the paper misplaced not less than 25,000 subscribers within the weeks after Quickly-Shiong overrode the paper’s editorial board to cancel a deliberate endorsement of Kamala Harris.
AdWeek reported in April that LA Occasions misplaced “round $50 million” in 2024.
