Newsroom plan presented I Guild team gives publisher, company way to save money and avoid contracting out of page desk Plan would avoid most layoffs and save company 50% more than contracting out Guild leaders and editorial team of deskers today presented our plan to dramatically evolve newsroom production, retooling the newsroom as a true multi-platform production machine. The efficiencies gained are dramatic — $1.46 million in annual savings.
This is a minimum $362,000 improvement over the company’s estimated annual cost savings from its plan to contract out page production to PageMasters.
Publisher John Cruickshank, Editor Michael Cooke and Managing Editor Jane Davenport were among the company executives who received the multimedia presentation Friday morning.
Much discussion followed, which will continue into next week.
There is no deadline for a final company decision on whether to continue with layoffs or negotiate a new plan based in part on today’s guild proposals.Among the highlights:
Creation of one Multimedia Production Desk based on breaking departmental silos and creating a true cross-trained pool of paginators and editors for both pages and the web.
We identified dramatic efficiencies that would allow the company to save a minimum of $1.46 million annually. The company estimates maximum savings of $1.2 million through its contracting out plan. Night differential would be eliminated for all staffers.
Conversion of four full-time page editors (or designers) to permanent part-time positions. Downsizing of 11 positions through VSP and layoff instead of the planned 26 production layoffs. Expanded use of weekly “flex hours” to all page editors
By far the biggest change would be the evolutionary move from separate page, copy and web editing silos to one efficient production desk.
Follow your union on Twitter: twitter.com/torontostarunit
