Post-Dispatch lays off 20
The Post-Dispatch laid off 20 people on Friday, 17 from the newsroom. It was unexpected — 18 people were laid off less than a month ago. To say there’s a feeling of defeat in the newsroom is an understatement.
Adding to they mayhem, our guild contract is being renegotiated and the layoffs started a couple of hours after the union walked out of negotiations. The union site said Lee Enterprises had threatened layoffs during talks, until the situation became “layoffs will happen, not matter what.” Two of the laid off employees were editors, who are not in the union, so I don’t believe this was a direct reaction to failures in the negotiation process. The union is meeting on Saturday to discuss what’s next.
- Employees laid off on Friday include:
- News clerks Robert Douglas, Bryant Ingram, John Mertzlufft, Coddy Murray, Keith Schildroth, Cyndi Waters, Pam Williams, Kim Taylor
- Jefferson City assistant Linda Sommers
- Reporters Patrick O’Connell and Christine Byers
- Copy editor Colleen Schrappen
- Designer Elizabeth Baird
- Assistant metro/business editors Ed Kohn and Rod Hicks
I’m missing two names. Under the guild contract, employees with more seniority can volunteer for the layoff, so not all names have been made public. The Washington, D.C., bureau is also shrinking. After the election, Bill Lambrect will stay in D.C. Phil Dine and Deirdre Shesgreen were offered transfers to St. Louis; I don’t know if they have accepted those transfers.
This layoff is just as difficult as the one in your newsroom. Too many great journalists and friends are being laid off and leaving newsrooms across the country right now.
- Posted by Erica Smith at 12:45 am / Permalink for this post
- Filed under: , buyouts and layoffs, St. Louis Post-Dispatch
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Somehow didn’t see this blog entry until now. Sorry to hear about another round of cuts. Not good. Hope things get better there (and everywhere) soon.
Just saw this today. I’m so sorry Erica.
These layoffs are just getting ridiculous. How are we suppose to maintain the level of coverage our readers expect if management continues to shrink editorial staff. If too many employees are laid off, we won’t be able to provide readers a complete report of their local news and they will stop buying our product. Then profits will really get bad. It’s a catch-22 and we need a better solution. Unfortunately, nobody has been able to figure it out what that solution is yet.
Good luck to those employees that were laid off.
Hey, you missed me, I was! I was the one designer laid off from the marketing department, that was still hiring people. Go figure. I guess I wasn’t important to mention. I was there for almost 10 years.
My apologies, Barry! Communication being what it is at a newspaper … I only knew the names of the newsroom folks.