Tag: outsourcing

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News The Fly-By

Bad News

“I have some difficult news to share.”

That’s never an encouraging opening to any communication. And there wasn’t anything encouraging about Commercial Appeal publisher Joe Pepe’s May 28th e-mail to employees at the Memphis Publishing Company.

“Readership in print and online versions of the newspaper continues to be outstanding,” Pepe wrote. “But slippage in major account, recruitment and automotive advertising over the last 12 months will result in the loss of about 55 jobs at the newspaper.”

That’s an 8 percent reduction of the company’s total staff (about 700) and an unprecedented number of cuts for a newspaper that has experienced its share of hard times in recent years.

“Last year we had layoffs and buyouts,” says Dakarai Aarons, Commercial Appeal reporter and vice president of the Memphis Newspaper Guild.

Pepe has not responded to requests for comment. Details regarding the cuts will be worked out over the next two weeks and completed by July 1st.

Aarons says the cuts will affect both union and non-union employees.

“We’ve met with the human-resources department to find out the depth of the cuts. They’ve indicated that they will mostly affect advertising, circulation, and customer service. We’ll be losing telemarketers,” he says.

In November 2007, as the newspaper guild marked its fourth year without a contract or a raise, Pepe announced that a significant portion of the advertising design department would be outsourced to India. Earlier that year, 15 truck drivers were laid off when their jobs were outsourced to an Indiana-based delivery company.

“We want to do what we can to ensure that this is as painless as possible for the folks who are transitioning out,” Aarons says. “And we want to make sure that we have decent working conditions for those who remain.”

Categories
Letters To The Editor Opinion

Letters to the Editor

Outsourcing

I picked up a Flyer the other day and read about The Commercial Appeal‘s brilliant tactic of outsourcing its graphics department (The Fly-by, November 8th issue). Needless to say, I was both shocked and appalled. What is bothering me now is that the other news media (excepting the Flyer) have not picked up this story and made the public aware of the blatant disregard for the workers of our city by their “hometown newspaper.”

I urge you to use your influence and expertise to further spread the news. I only wish I were independently wealthy so I could afford to spend my time and money fighting this sort of corporate sabotage of the American workforce.

Thanks to you and the staff at the Memphis Flyer for keeping us informed.

Pat Dugan

Memphis

Iraq

Charley Reese wrote a great article on Iraq (Viewpoint, November 15th issue). He asked rhetorically about why we went into Iraq to begin with. It’s my opinion that the first President Bush had a reason to go into Iraq, but the current President Bush is the one who got to execute the plan.

Saddam Hussein let it slip prior to Desert Storm that he had a contract out to assassinate George H.W. Bush. It was reported that Bush 41 wanted to go into Baghdad at the end of Desert Storm to get rid of the “Baghdad bullies,” but wiser heads prevailed.

The current President Bush, in my opinion, used 9/11 as an excuse to hide his real intentions and used fear to leverage Congress to go into Iraq. The press, the American public, and (some) of our allies bought it hook, line, and sinker. It’s well-documented that al-Qaeda did not exist in Iraq prior to our troops overthrowing Saddam. This scenario is the only thing that makes sense to me.

Mike Crockett
Cordova

“Jail Cred”

As a native and former Memphian, I marvel at the existence of “jail cred” as a political asset. Should we expect that Rickey Peete will be a candidate for mayor when he’s released 51 months from now?

Memphis has always been divided into two distinct worlds — black and white. Since the early 1970s, the white power structure has done a great deal to undermine public education, a thinly veiled tool of a racist agenda. The results are now coming home to roost in violent and petty crimes throughout the enclaves of formerly secure East Memphis. The crime wave is a product of the now-pathetic public education system and a lack of integrity in the spiritual leadership of the black community.

Some leaders in the black community share the blame for being apologists for habitual criminals such as Peete and promoting his shameful brand of leadership. Peete was predictably reelected in 1995 after gaining jail cred. Can you believe he did the same things all over again on a grander scale?

The downside of liberalism is protecting the wrong people for the wrong reasons. Unions sometimes protect bad workers, thereby undermining their own integrity. Peete was protected and defended by black leaders only because he was a black leader.

Be that as it may, the downside of liberalism has done far less damage to the fabric of American culture and politics than has the downside of conservatism. Ronald Reagan revived racism in America when he kicked off his 1980 campaign in Philadelphia, Mississippi, by pandering to the “states’ rights” crowd. As a result, black spiritual and political leaders felt embattled all over again and closed ranks to protect all black leaders — good and bad.

H. Scott Prosterman
Berkeley, California

Memphis is Home

Bruce VanWyngarden’s remarks about Memphis in response to the letter from Houston (Editor’s Column, November 15th issue) touched me so much that I had to write. They were beautifully written.

I have lived in Memphis all my life, except for six years in Italy. I couldn’t wait to come home. My son has traveled all over the country — from the West Coast to the East, from north to south — and has been in Italy, Mexico, and Canada. Once, he couldn’t wait to be old enough to leave this city. Now, he’s proud to call Memphis his home. Thank you for such astute comment.

Barbara LoSicco

Memphis

Categories
News The Fly-By

Bad News

This month, the Newspaper Guild of Memphis will celebrate a rather unhappy anniversary. It’s been four years since the union’s contract expired, starting a painfully slow collective bargaining process with The Commercial Appeal management, which has repeatedly shown its intent to fight a battle of endurance and attrition in order to starve out the union. As if on cue, the CA‘s management has now decided to outsource a significant portion of its advertising layout department to India.

In 2005, Mark Watson, past-president of the Memphis Newspaper Guild, predicted that the CA would begin to outsource jobs sometime in the near future. He was a little premature, but he was correct to insist that the guild’s collective bargaining agreement was the only thing protecting guild members from losing their jobs to outsourcing.

“The paper could outsource every position but one in every department,” Watson told the Flyer. “I’m not saying that they have proposed this, but they could do it. You might have one person here in Memphis compiling data for classified advertising, and the rest would be in India or Estonia or Arlington, Texas.”

Earlier this year, the CA laid off 15 truck drivers and outsourced the work to an Indiana-based delivery firm. Because of a side-letter agreement existing between management and the drivers and dating from the early 1970s, those workers weren’t protected by the guild’s contract.

“Of course, [the new company] hired back all the truckers but without benefits,” says Linda Moore, the current guild president.

Last week, the CA’s management kicked things up a notch when news leaked that the advertising layout department was bound for a slightly more exotic destination: India.

Outsourcing newspaper work isn’t a new idea, though the notion remains controversial. Reuters, a multimedia news agency, has moved its photo desks in Canada and Washington, D.C., to Singapore. Several papers across the country have outsourced their printing, human resources, circulation, customer service, and advertising layout departments.

News of the CA’s decision to outsource work to India comes at a time when the newspaper is reeling from a number of blows to both its credibility and its bottom line, including fallout from the company’s recent decision to seek paid sponsors for editorial content.

The CA, which has undergone numerous content changes to cut costs and appeal to readers who haven’t traditionally read the paper, is also bleeding circulation. In May, the Flyer reported a recent publisher’s statement, obtained from the Audit Bureau of Circulations, which contained some very bad news.

According to the statement, average weekday circulation for the six-month period ending in March 2007 was 146,000 copies, down almost 10 percent from the year before. The Sunday edition had seen almost a 15 percent drop.

“Morale is nonexistent on a number of levels,” Moore says. “I don’t feel as though we’re any closer to getting a new contract. In fact, I feel very frustrated.”

Moore’s frustration is tempered by the fact that none of the roughly 20 people affected by the outsourcing will lose their jobs. The last contract, the terms of which are held in place by an “evergreen clause” that the CA management has repeatedly tried to eliminate or circumvent, prevents firing or laying off workers as the result of outsourcing.

“All of the work isn’t being sent to India, and some of the workers will be moved to other projects,” Moore explains. “But as all these workers eventually leave the company, they won’t be replaced. … Right now, [management] is testing the waters to see just how much they can get away with.

“[Outsourcing] will be a rallying cry,” Moore says, expressing her hope that it will help to grow guild membership and fire up the existing members. “It will show members the value of our contract as the only thing standing between their jobs and the door.”