- NEWS
- Nearly an inch of rain hits O.C. 1 hour & 27 minutes ago
- Report: Gay O.C. soldier returns to duty 33 minutes ago
- Tustin hospital exec pleads guilty to fraud 3 hours & 43 minutes ago
- More than 40 DUI arrests made Super Bowl Sunday 3 hours & 42 minutes ago
- SPORTS
- Hockey more than game to Canada 6 minutes ago
- O.C. teams atop CIF basketball rankings 2 hours & 22 minutes ago
- U.S. skier Kearney loves life up in the air 3 hours & 14 minutes ago
- Fans must know rules before donning jersey 1 hour & 27 minutes ago
- BUSINESS
- ENTERTAINMENT
- Will H.B. woman be the next 'Bachelorette'? 1 hour & 17 minutes ago
- Patty Griffin headed to the Wiltern 2 hours & 31 minutes ago
- Orange Pop: Busy days for the Dear & Departed 2 hours & 4 minutes ago
- AfterWork: Hooters in Lake Forest
- LIFE
- TRAVEL
- OPINION
O.C. Register workers get 5% pay cut
June 29th, 2009, 5:29 pm · 29 Comments · posted by Mary Ann Milbourn
Workers at the Orange County Register will get a 5% cut in pay effective July 13 as part of an across-the-board reduction being implemented by its parent company, Irvine-based Freedom Communications Inc.
The company, like media firms across the country, has struggled financially 
due to the weak economy, declining advertising and circulation and new competition from the Internet. At the same time Freedom is laboring under $700 million in debt, which it took on in 2004 to pay members of the family-owned company who wanted to cash in their shares.
Over the last couple of years, Freedom has implemented a range of cuts including voluntary severance, layoffs and ending the company’s matching contribution to the 401-K plan. During the second quarter, all employees had to take a five-day unpaid furlough.
Burl Osborne, Freedom’s incoming interim chief executive, said the executive team considered and rejected other actions, including additional furloughs in the last two quarters of the year and further layoffs.
“There is no best way,” he said. “This, I believe, is the least worst way. No one is enjoying this.”
He said the goal was to preserve the quality of the products the company produces.
“We felt that taking this action provided the best opportunity to maintain an organization that will meet the needs of our advertisers, readers and viewers,” Osborne wrote in a memo to colleagues. “Equally important, it will help us deliver on our financial commitments in 2009 and set us up for a stronger 2010.”
He said he is convinced the company will recover once the economy is on the mend.
“I do believe there is a future for us,” he said. “The trick is to survive until we get to the other side of this very deep river we have to cross.”
Other media companies are making similar cuts. Employees at the New York Times got a 5% pay cut earlier this year while unions representing workers at the Denver Post approved an 11.7% decrease in benefits, including a 7.4% reduction in pay.
Last week, the Boston Newspaper Guild reached a tentative agreement with the New York Times Co., parent of the Boston Globe, after contentious negotiations during which the Times threatened to shut down the paper. The guild agreement provides for a 5.94% pay cut, five unpaid days of furlough, two days of unpaid vacation and one unpaid holiday.
Freedom Communications owns 33 daily newspapers across the country, more than 70 weekly newspapers, magazines and other specialty publications and seven broadcast stations.
More stories on Orange County media …
Reader Comments
Comments are encouraged, but you must follow our User Agreement.- Keep it civil and stay on topic.
- No profanity, vulgarity, racial slurs or personal attacks.
- People who harass others or joke about tragedies will be blocked.
29 Comments
-
ADVERTISEMENT
What our biz blogs are saying- Hopeful day on the jobs front?
- Office romance flirts with disaster
- Here's why Toyota is recalling the Prius
- Temp work pointing to a recovery?
- $16.5M apartments sale sets record
- Home slashes $1.3 million in 4 days
- Government may appeal Broadcom dismissal
- Toyota owners see another recall but a quicker fix
- Disney parks attendance jumps 20 percent
- Community college raffles 2010 Prius despite recall
- Top national stories from AP
-
-
-
ADVERTISEMENT
Why couldn’t the Rancho Santiago Community College District do this with its employees starting from the top down? Instead they are closing much needed programs and approving massive layoffs. I guess the top paying administrators who get paid between 100 and 400 grand a year don’t want anyone to disrupt their livelihoods, but it’s OK to disrupt others.
Freedom Communications just charged all there employees for their latest lawsuit loss…WOW
To really be helpful, all employees should take a 10-20% pay cut and have their benefits reduced. More work for less money-that is the Republican/Libertarian/American way! Hopefully, the board of directors can keep any bonuses/salaries without reductions that they have earned for making these “tough” decision. I can see the recession ending any time now. Unfortunately, the average worker won’t be able to see when the recession ends, as they will be buried in debt and other expenses!
What is the Democrat/UnAmerican solution to the problem then?
Great question skippy - Give all workers more days off, and salary increases until the company goes bankrupt. Stupid liberals…..
We did it in the business economy.
We were glad to take a 20% cut and KEEP our JOBS.
Thats a shame
how did they get this info??????
This is terrible. I think a good solution would be to have Register employees hand their jobs over to illegal aliens. I know helping illegals is the paper’s top priority and this would be a good way to cut overhead at the same time.
Then it would have to be in Spanish.
And all stories would involve Santa Ana.
How about shutting down a few of the money losing worthless newspapers or just selling off the assets to companies that know how to run media companies?
Dorian,
You need to rewrite your message in Spanish.
should get 50% cut. can’t write a decent article
Cutting wages is never the way to go. How good would you feel working for your company after a pay cut? The problem with most news papers is that the quality has been reduced over the years and it shows. Reduction in quality leads to reduction in readership. Remember when the paper was 50% wider, more columns per page. No advertising on front page of any section. Higher news to ad ratio. I cancelled my subscription to the LA Times after they removed the opinion and real estate sections. This was after a number of years of other reductions.
What happened to that community meeting where the publisher told everybody how great things were going to be. What lies.
Thats exactly why I left. Why is it that Freedom’s ITHQ (Interactive) department gets paid so much more? Trust me there are quite a few individuals in that dept. that do not deserve to get paid that much.
Hmm. I just got about a 5% increase and will get another increase in October.
From as many errors as I find in posted articles the 5% decrease is in line. However I feel it’s not due to that reason.
I guess the O.C. Register employees aren’t in a union that could refuse the 5% cut, i.e. school teachers.
I feel sorry for everyone except Steve Greenhut.
On top of some whos jobs are being outsorced to India….wow….but the fat cats arn’t tightening their belts….while everyone else is homelss and out of work…..yeah….that’s fair
Yeah same here we got 5% pay cut plus our Medical taken away from us but we can pay out of pocket but too expensive so we have no Medical and 5% pay Cut.
Welcome to world of reality-I just got a 10% cut and am looking at most likely an additional 10% cut to keep my job. I wish I could be as lucky as they are with only a 5% cut. I’m certain at some point I’ll loose my benefits as well.
While I subscribe to the daily newspaper, I find myself reading more and more of the OCR on the internet. Tough business to be in right now during the transition. The only day I actually open and read the paper is on Sundays. Maybe a subscription that included exclusive internet content and the sunday paper would work. (For the same or a reduced price of course). I only need the tangible newspaper version for the advertisements….that is the tricky part…….
You bet, it has to be the illegals who maxed out their HELOC loans, defaulted on their homes , took on more credit then they could repay, the illegals then kept trying to keep up with the Sanchez’s till the credit market burst. Then the illegal Democrats created social programs this state could not afford till the state is the laughing stock of the nation. With such leadership like Boxer,Feinstein, Pelosi we should recover, how about spending money we don’t have to spend our way out of the dilema that should solve the problem those darn overspending illegals created for us. To quote your hero in office Hussein, what’s another trillion?
Why doesn’t Freedom understand that you can’t make any money off a free product? Newspapers were never high-priced, but online content is free. And online ads just don’t bring in as much as print ads. You can drive up page views all you want, but it will take a lot to match the efficiency of print ads. I feel for all the Freedom workers and hope the next announcement you get is a good one, not another lost benefit.
First I went Hooray! Then I went awwww. I first mind snapshot read “Orange County … Employees” in the headline. Then I saw it was “Orange County Register Employees”. When are Orange County Employees going to take a pay cut.
Funny how many people are “happy to keep their jobs” even though those jobs do not provide for their families.
Funny how many are willing to “pay more” and “earn less” so that the rich and mighty can add few more millions to their portfolios.
Everywhere else people woke to the fact that healthy society is the one that provides for its members by rewarding their efforts and work some 60 years ago.
It the golden calf you bow to so alluring?
If so, it’s also out of your reach.