By: Mark Fitzgerald The Paddock family-owned Daily Herald in suburban Chicago is for the first time offering buyouts to an unspecified number of employees as it cuts hours, and salaries, across the board.
If not enough employees accept the offer, there will be involuntary layoffs, a memo to employees warned.
"What I said in a memo this week in essence is that we're looking at a difficult year next year, but certainly one that's not impossible," President and CEO Doug Ray said Friday. "Each of us is having our pay reduced by 6.25% as one way to preserve as many job as possible, and still make the commitment to journalism we do."
Ray said the buyouts are being offered in all departments, with final decisions on who will be accepted coming after the first of the year. "I don't know at this point how many people will take it," he said.
According to the memo, first published in Chicago Reader media critic Mike Miner's "News Bites" blog, volunteers are being offered a week's pay for each year of service up to 26 weeks. Those laid off will receive a severance of a half-week's pay for every year up to 13 weeks.
Beginning Dec. 14, the work week at the newspaper is being reduced to 37.5 hours. The paper had earlier ordered employees to take one unpaid day off every quarter.
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