Downsizing ends without newroom layoffs

The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel’s newsroom staff accounted for 24 of the 46 Journal Sentinel Inc. employees who took voluntary buyouts this month, but none of the 22 staffers laid off last week came from the newsroom or from other union-represented positions.

With those actions, Journal Sentinel managers have told Milwaukee Newspaper Guild representatives that the company’s downsizing has been completed, and that no further cuts are planned at this time.

The company had set a goal of cutting 10% of payroll, or the equivalent of about 130 full-time employees. In addition to the 46 buyouts and Thursday’s 22 layoffs, management shut down the youth-oriented MKE weekly (eliminating five newsroom jobs and possibly a few in other departments); outsourced several non-union departments; and left vacant some positions of employees who left between the last buyout and the most recent one.

51 jobs cut since last fall

This was the second round of buyouts in less than a year. In last fall’s buyouts, 22 of the 56 employees who left came from the newsroom.

Together, the two rounds of buyouts and the MKE shutdown have eliminated 51 newsroom jobs. (The exact number of jobs lost since October may differ slightly, because a few of those who left in the first buyout have been replaced, but some of the others who left voluntarily between buyouts weren’t replaced.)

Of those 51 jobs, 13 were reporters; 11 were editors; nine were support staffers (secretaries, News Information Center employees, editorial assistants, technicians or clerks); six were columnists, critics, editorial writers or editorial cartoonists; six were visual journalists (photographers, artists or page designers); five were copy editors; and one was an online producer. Every newsroom department was affected.

Also, 45 were in Guild-represented jobs. The other six were in non-union positions as managers, executive secretaries or Washington Bureau members.

More than 100 jobs lost since merger

Although most of those who took the buyouts left this month, several are sticking around through the fall. By the time all of them have left, the Guild estimates the newsroom staff will be less than 250, with about 200 positions in our bargaining unit and about 46 in non-represented jobs. (The exact number of jobs outside the unit is a subject of negotiation in the current contract talks.)

By comparison, the combined newsroom staffs of The Milwaukee Journal and the Milwaukee Sentinel totaled 452 before the 1995 merger, and the Journal Sentinel newsroom staff stood at 355 after the merger. In other words, we have lost more newsroom jobs in the past 13 years than we did in the merger.

In addition to the most recent downsizing moves, 12 News Information Center employees took buyouts in 2000, a photo tech was laid off in 2001 and two part-time reporters were laid off in 2005. The rest of the job cuts came through a couple of early retirement programs and through attrition.