Statement from the L.A. Times Guild on the mass layoffs at the Los Angeles Times

This statement by the Guild was posted Jan. 23 to X (formerly Twitter):

Last Friday, the Los Angeles Times Guild went on a one-day strike in response to a mass layoff announcement by the company. Today, those layoffs have come to pass. We believe our decision to go on strike saved scores of newsroom jobs today, as L.A. Times President and COO Chris Argentieri alluded to in his memo to the newsroom this afternoon. But for the rest of the 94 LAT Guild members still facing layoff, it did not have to be this way.

In the 2019 contract that the Los Angeles Times's lawyers negotiated, management can offer buyouts on any day and at any time — a far more humane way to make cuts during a fiscal crisis of our company's own making. Instead, The Times chose long-planned mass layoffs via a webinar in which staff members weren't allowed so much as a question.

Slashing a quarter of the newsroom is devastating by any measure — to our members and their families, to our morale, to the quality of our journalism, to the bond with our audience, and to the communities that depend on our work. This cut in staff comes after the company previously eliminated 74 newsroom jobs in July.

It also means the company has reneged on its promises to diversify its ranks since young journalists of color have been disproportionately affected. The Black, AAPI, and Latino Caucuses have suffered devastating losses. Voluntary buyouts could have helped prevent this, but that's not the path the company chose. A buyout process required by our Guild contract could still help offset these cuts.

In his public comments, The Times' owner has sought to shift the blame for these layoffs away from himself and onto the union. We wholeheartedly reject that.

• For one, it is the company that chose to lay people off, not the Guild.
• Secondly, management wanted the Guild to agree to extreme layoff terms that it was unwilling to share on the record — essentially asking journalists to sign a deal without telling them what was in that deal.
• Third, as part of this secretive deal, the company attempted to pit young journalists of color against more senior employees — and gut seniority in the process. We didn't — and won't — stand for that.

This staffing cut is the fruit of years of middling strategy, the absence of a publisher, and no clear direction. It is still unclear who is in charge of our newsroom more than a week after our executive editor resigned. We remain grateful for the Soon-Shiong family's investment in the newspaper, and we remain committed to be good-faith partners in the business and at the bargaining table. But it's clear that those entrusted to steward his family's largesse have failed him — not the rank-and-file staff members with no say in editorial priorities. Our owner has publicly said he has a plan for moving forward but has not shared it with any of us.

We still believe in the Los Angeles Times and the important role it plays in a vibrant democracy. But a newspaper can't play that role when its staff has been cut to the bone. Los Angeles is a first-class city and needs a first-class newsroom to check its leaders, celebrate its victories, and tell the stories of its people.

Journalists depend on trust — of the public, our readers, sources and community leaders. The events of the last week undermine that trust. This layoff was handled in a brutal and inhumane way. We had members locked out of communications systems before they could even read the layoff notices in their company email. Some were laid off several hours into their shifts.

Today has been gutting. But the Guild will not be deterred or intimidated. We will continue to fight for our members and for the future of the Los Angeles Times.