No more set vacation or sick days for workers at LA Times

The LA Times loves Obama, kept quiet about John Gruber, refuses to demand answers about Benghazi, Fast and Furious, the IRS/NSA scandals and the White House apologies to the terrorists.

The LA Times has a liberal editorial page, propaganda on its front page, but is managed like a 1930’s company—anti-worker. They have taken away sick days and vacation time from workers—SERIOUSLY.

“Starting January 1, staffers will no longer be able to bank vacation — because they won’t automatically earn or be entitled to any vacation, sick days or floating holidays. To get any time off, a reporter or editor will have to go to a supervisor and make a case “subject to their professional judgment and to the performance expectations of their supervisor that apply to their job.” In one stroke, vacation time and sick days become a management tool to monitor and reward or punish performance — or to favor the yes men that plague the Times’ organization — and crucially, a way to get that expensive banked vacation off the books.”

In other words, they are cooking the books—will the SEC look at this, which government agency will stop this—maybe Obama will have Homeland Security take over the paper?

Looks like the Times is fast becoming a neighborhood throw away…can no longer be taken seriously.

Huge change: No more set vacation or sick days at LA Times

By Kevin Roderick, LA Observed,   11/17/14

First, a little background. Dating to even before Tribune Company ownership of the LA Times, the cost cutters looked for a way to reduce the huge commitment on the books to pay for vacation days banked by employees. In newsrooms, like in many workplaces, staffers tend not to take a lot of vacation and thus the earned time off accrues. Well, the new ownership — Tribune Publishing — has found a way to trim this cost, while also giving managers a new hammer to hold over the heads of harried newsroom staffers. Starting January 1, staffers will no longer be able to bank vacation — because they won’t automatically earn or be entitled to any vacation, sick days or floating holidays. To get any time off, a reporter or editor will have to go to a supervisor and make a case “subject to their professional judgment and to the performance expectations of their supervisor that apply to their job.” In one stroke, vacation time and sick days become a management tool to monitor and reward or punish performance — or to favor the yes men that plague the Times’ organization — and crucially, a way to get that expensive banked vacation off the books. That’s because if a staffer succeeds in getting permission to take time off, he or she first has to use any banked time to pay for it. So the company’s financial burden gradually lessens.

In theory an employee will be able to take more time off than now, since there will be no stated limit. Instead of, say, three weeks a year plus sick days, you could ask for eight weeks next summer to go trekking in Nepal and a supervisor could say cheerfully, “Cool! Take nine!” But I haven’t talked to anyone around the Times who believes that’s in the cards here — and this was the hot subject all weekend wherever Timesmen and women gathered, I’m told. Times staffers and managers already feel more pressure than ever to cover the news for print, web and social media with a much smaller and less experienced staff. The first line in the company’s explanation of the objective behind the new Discretionary Time Off policy makes clear it’s about performance: “A performance-driven culture is one where results are rewarded.” The first bullet in a summary sent to all employees make it clearer: To ask for time off, “you will need to understand your supervisor’s expectations for your performance.” Nothing subtle there.

Vacation time has always been subject to a desk’s scheduling needs — keeping shifts covered is not what this is about. Any spinmeister who tries to say this is about allowing more time off or “flexibility” is lying to your face — if the big boss wants to give you a bonus of more paid time off now, he has ways to do so. Under the new blanket policy, to get any time off — say, to have dental surgery or for a sensitive family issue you don’t want to talk about in the office — a staffer will have to sell a supervisor who may have his own performance pressures from above. Or who may not like you. Or who wants to send you or his bosses a message. The memo from the company repeats often that adequate time off will be officially encouraged and expected of supervisors, but the memo also stresses over and over that approval will be subject to overall performance. In an environment where just about everybody already half-expects to be laid off at any time, it feels like all the incentive will be to not even ask for time off. The company memo says supervisors will be evaluated on their employees taking enough time off — but whose work ethic will decide what is enough? It suddenly becomes totally subjective, in a newsroom where some women and minorities already feel out of place and out of favor in a sea of white men. When the next wave of staff cuts sweeps the newsroom, I doubt anybody wants to be the person who took a lot of time off and whose last tweet was insufficiently goosed to attract eyeballs.

So I expect there will be much less time taken off by Times staffers, who already seem kind of burned out — which appears to be a main goal of the policy. But there is a huge other motivation for Tribune Publishing. Banked vacation days — which the Times has to pay out in cash when employees leave or retire, and many are more or less perpetually trying to leave — will gradually evaporate off the books. This was a major perk for many employees, who may have forgone vacation for years in order to bank time and get paid for it when they retire, quit or get fired. Now they will have to draw down that banked asset to take any time off, even a sick day — no one will earn any more discretionary vacation days to bank. That’s a pretty big financial and lifestyle hit for workers, including by the way many who have chosen to stick it out at the LAT while friends were leaving for more up-trending media outlets or just more stable employers. Now they all have more incentive to leave, seems to me. Good move, Tribune.

Romenesko posted on Friday the original Tribune Publishing memo which spun the new policy as good for employees. That went over so poorly that late Friday night Gwen Murakami, the senior VP for human resources, sent out an attempt to calm people down. Notice how carefully it is spun — and the audacious BS that the change is about giving employees “greater flexibility.”