NYTCo.'s New England Group Nears Buyout Goal

By: E&P Staff The New York Times Company's order cutting 160 positions in its New England group, announced in September, is heading to that goal, with 115 buyouts approved so far at The Boston Globe, Worcester Telegram & Gazette and Globe Specialty Products, Globe Publisher Richard Gilman announced today in a memo to staffers.

"These difficult decisions have been triggered by our need to respond to a rapidly changing media landscape, and put us in a stronger financial position to pursue our goals in 2006 and the years ahead," Gilman wrote.

Yesterday, Orlando Sentinel Publisher Kathy Waltz told her staff that the Tribune-owned paper would lose 54 positions, including the elimination of 33 open positions and 21 layoffs. E&P is keeping a running tab on newspaper job losses here, updated as necessary.

Here is the text of Gilman's memo.

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As you know, because of the challenging business environment, we planned to reduce the staff at New England Media Group by 160 positions. Our goal was to achieve as many of these reductions as possible through voluntary buyouts from both Guild and Exempt employees. The largest of these programs are now closed at The Boston Globe, Worcester Telegram & Gazette, and Globe Specialty Products. We have approved buyout acceptances from 115 employees.

I understand how difficult these individual decisions were to make. We all appreciate the contributions these employees have made over their careers at the Globe, Telegram, and GSP. And, I know that we will all miss our colleagues who are leaving.

We still need to take an additional step to achieve our targeted workforce reduction goals. We have notified the Newspaper Guild that, beginning in February 2006, we will contract with a vendor to provide our custodial services. This will result in considerable cost savings to our current operation. Employees who provide these services today will be offered buyout packages that include compensation, health plan extensions, and group outplacement services. Employees in this area with job guarantees will be transferred to other functions at the Globe.

These difficult decisions have been triggered by our need to respond to a rapidly changing media landscape, and put us in a stronger financial position to pursue our goals in 2006 and the years ahead.