'Buffalo News' Extends Buyouts to 10% Of Staff -- 'Modesto Bee' Offers to All

By: Joe Strupp The Buffalo News is offering buyouts to 107 employees, or 10% of its workforce, according to a story posted on its Web site.

Terming the offers "voluntary resignation incentives," the News stated the move is "an attempt to reduce operating expenses." It also reported that newsroom and outside advertising representatives are not included.

"Like all other news organizations, our business is under financial duress," Dottie Gallagher-Cohen, News senior vice president of marketing, said in the story. "We are trying to reduce expenses in the least painful way possible."

The paper said employees must decide by Oct. 3 if they want to take the buyouts. Those departing will be gone by Dec. 31.

"The amount of money being offered varies on an individual basis and has been calculated according to each employee's rate of pay and years of service to the company," the News wrote. "The baseline offer is $60,000."

"This is how we can continue to manage the business in the smartest, most thoughtful way for our customers and employees," Gallagher-Cohen said in the story.

Meanwhile, the Modesto Bee is taking even more drastic measures.

Here is an excerpt from a story in that paper Tuesday:

*
The Modesto Bee offered buyouts Monday to all its full-time employees. The announcement comes four days after The McClatchy Company, which owns The Bee and 29 other daily newspapers, announced a companywide one-year wage freeze.

"Unfortunately, the economy continues to worsen, and we must reduce expenses further," Publisher Margaret Randazzo said in an e-mail to employees.

This is the second buyout The Bee has offered employees this year. The first buyout, announced in April, was available to about 100 employees and 11 took it. Reporters and ad salespeople were excluded. In June, 15 employees were laid off from The Modesto Bee's advertising, circulation and operations divisions as part of McClatchy's decision to reduce its overall work force by 10 percent.

The latest buyout offer was extended to about 200 full-time staff, Randazzo said in an interview Monday.

These actions follow last month's announcement that The Bee will cease printing in Modesto. While reporters, editors, advertising staff and others will continue working in Modesto, the paper will be printed on presses at The Sacramento Bee and trucked to Modesto for distribution starting Sept. 29.

That change will cost 33 full-time employees and 127 part-time employees their jobs. Though they will remain at work until Sept. 28, those employees are not eligible for the buyout offered Monday.