Guild Walks At L-A Times

Los Angeles Times newsroom guild leaders called for a one-day walkout Friday to protest planned cuts to offset steep financial losses that owner Dr. Patrick Soon-Shiong and his family have absorbed since acquiring the paper nearly six years ago.

The Times disclosed Thursday that substantial layoffs were coming due to a widening budget deficit. The walkout represents the newsroom’s first union-organized work stoppage in the paper’s 142-year history.

Management has not publicly disclosed the number of newsroom positions that will be eliminated, but knowledgeable people said the plan is to lay off at least 100 journalists, or about 20% of the newsroom — the largest staff cut since the paper was owned by Tribune Co.

The looming cuts have sparked widespread anxiety in a newsroom already shaken by last week’s abrupt departure of editor-in-chief Kevin Merida who stepped down amid tensions with Soon-Shiong, in large part, over Merida’s fears that the magnitude of the proposed cuts would hamper the paper’s progress toward strengthening its journalism to become a sustainable enterprise, according to the knowledgeable people.

The proposed layoffs will mark the third round of cuts since June, when more than 70 positions, or about 13% of the newsroom, were let go.

“The company and the Guild are currently in discussions about how to proceed,” newsroom managers said in a message sent to the newsroom Thursday. “We believe our shared goals are to preserve as many jobs as possible and maintain areas of coverage that better represent the communities we serve and that our readers have shown us are vital to the business.”

This week, Soon-Shiong and other managers asked the union’s bargaining unit to relax provisions in its contract intended to protect journalists with seniority from layoffs. If the union agreed to that, the company would offer affected employees a buyout package in advance of any layoff, managers said.

Soon-Shiong wants to make cuts while also retaining the younger and diverse staff members who have joined the paper in recent years as the organization has prioritized its efforts to boost the number of journalists of color to better reflect the community that it serves.