The Los Angeles Times’ union is calling for a one-day strike after newsroom leaders told staff Thursday that they are planning another round of layoffs.
The strike, planned for today, will be the first union-led work stoppage at the paper since its founding in 1881. The company declined to comment on the scope of the impending layoffs, though Times staff writer Meg James reported that the Times plans to cut “at least 100 journalists, or about 20% of the newsroom.”
Financial challenges have compelled the company to seek layoffs, Los Angeles Times spokesperson Hillary Manning said.
“We need to reduce our operating budget going into this year and anticipate layoffs. The hardest decisions to make are those that impact our employees, and we do not come to any such decisions lightly,” Manning wrote in an emailed statement. “We are continuing to review the revenue projections for this year and taking a very careful look at expenses and what our organization can support.”
Times leadership and the union have clashed over how to execute the layoffs. The company wants to bypass seniority protections in the union’s contract, according to the union. In their email to staff Thursday, newsroom leaders said that having more flexibility in deciding who they cut will allow them to save 50 union positions.
The union is characterizing the request as an “impossible” choice.
“The changes to our contract that management is trying to pressure us into accepting are obscene and unsustainable,” Brian Contreras, the union’s unit council chair, said in a press release. “If this newsroom will ever be a place where reporters can have a reliable, steady job and put down roots in Los Angeles, that will only happen through the preservation of our seniority protections.”
In recent years, the Times has tried to diversify its hiring, but those new hires would be among the first to be laid off under the contract's seniority protections. Company leaders appeared to acknowledge this in their email to staff, writing that they had received a letter from the union’s affinity caucuses urging them to “maintain the gains in diversity achieved over the last five years.”
Instead of eliminating seniority protections, the union has proposed that the Times offer buyouts to all union members and credit any buyouts to the total number of layoffs it is seeking. Buyouts would help preserve the newsroom’s recent progress in diversifying its staff, the union argued.
After management first notified the union’s bargaining committee of its layoff plans Wednesday, the union called an emergency meeting for the next day. More than 300 members showed up, the Times reported.
Last year, the Times went through a round of layoffs in December that saw at least nine people cut and a much larger one in June that affected more than 70 employees. Times owner and billionaire Dr. Patrick Soon-Shiong also sold The San Diego Union-Tribune as part of the June cuts.
The June layoffs were the first at the company in nearly five years and surprised staff, who had hoped that Soon-Shiong’s ownership of the paper would protect them from the cuts that had plagued the rest of the industry.
News of the planned layoffs comes less than a week after former executive editor Kevin Merida stepped down. He told the Times that his decision was informed by multiple factors, including “differences of opinion about the role of an executive editor, how journalism should be practiced and strategy going forward.”
TheWrap reported that Soon-Shiong interfered with newsroom decisions, causing Merida to ultimately decide to leave five months before his contract was up. (The Times denied any newsroom interference.) Merida was also frustrated that he could not get clear budget figures for the newsroom, according to TheWrap, even though the paper was losing tens of millions of dollars every year as it struggled to gain subscribers.
Prior to Soon-Shiong’s ownership, the Times underwent numerous rounds of buyouts and layoffs. At least three former executive editors departed the paper due to budget disagreements with former owner Tribune Company.
In 2005, John Carroll resigned over his belief that cuts would hurt the paper’s quality. He was succeeded by Dean Baquet, who was forced out after he opposed staff reductions. Baquet’s replacement, James O’Shea, was also asked to leave two years later in 2008 when he disagreed with Tribune’s plan to cut staff.
By Angela Fu, media business reporter
