Monday 7 February 2011

Welland -18

Another Niagara Region Sun Media newspaper got hammered today with 18 pre-press employees at the Welland Tribune shown the door.

TSF tipsters say the work is being sent to Woodstock and Barrie centres.

"Another Black Monday today," says one of several TSF tipsters. "In addition to 4 creative people being laid off, the whole composing in Welland was let go. That's 18 people!" 

Another tipster writes:

"The work is being farmed out to Woodstock and Barrie, but in typical Sun Media fashion, the people in Woodstock (at the least) don't really know how this new process is going to work."

The Welland Tribune, St. Catharines Standard and Niagara Falls Review  have been cutback targets for several years now. 

As one tipster says: "Time to start picking a casket, these papers are done."

25 comments:

  1. There are still eight people in the pre-press department at The Tribune. They'll be working on online ads.
    The papers are not done, despite what the other tipsters said. The Tribune is actually hiring a reporter to replace former reporter Kaesha Forand who left to go work for a police agency.
    And the company shut down servers, Internet and e-mail when announcing the job cuts to those being cuts and the rest of the staff. A blackout of sorts, I guess

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  2. If the company says the work is going to Barrie and Woodstock it is really going to India isn't it?

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  3. Um ... sorry, these papers ARE done. Go spend one day with the utterly demoralized staff. Go try and find inspiration from the heartless, borderline incompetent managers. Try and do your job when every week comes news of more lay-offs. They've decimated the Niagara papers into nothing.
    Oh, and because the Tribune pre-press department wasn't unionized, the manager got to pick and choose who she kept, leaving several people with more experience out of a job.

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  4. Here Here on the second comment. You've got to have your head stuck in the sand to think that things are ok at these or any of the other Quebecor papers. There is a commitment to immediate profit and that's the only commitment. And when revenues aren't there, guess where the bottom line comes from - expense cuts. They've reached their Tipping Point (read Malcolm Gladwell's book). It can only get worse when there is absolutely no commitment to improving quality for neither the reader nor the advertiser. What's better? Readership? No. Circ sales? No. Higher page count? No. More local content? No. Better colour quality reproduction? Yes. Something to cling to I guess.

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  5. Ummm....as an employees at one of said papers, I do my job every day, every week.
    Layoffs aren't every week, but yes, we have been hit we at least 23 layoffs in the past month and that hasn't been fun or easy.
    Yes, staff are demoralized, but we do our jobs every day despite what happens around us. Not all of the managers are heartless or borderline incompetent.
    Our papers have been cut way down, no argument there. But there are still staff here that do their jobs.
    Are you seeing a theme here? We do our jobs, we do the best we can in the ever-changing circumstances that surround us.
    Maybe the poster at 11:02 a.m. works in the same building as me, hell, they could even be working beside me right now. All I know is, all of us try. That's all we can do.
    For the record, no department left in The Tribune is unionized, so it is at the whim of managers as to which staff they let go. And those with more experience usually come with more pay and with the way the company operates, experience means nothing. It all comes down to how much they can save, so they keep the less experienced because they're paid less.
    And if you work at The Trib, then you know what it was like as those people who were terminated, left the building. Never have I seen more people crying than on Monday. It was probably harder to witness that than anything else I've experienced in this job. They let some truly great people go and one day it will come back to bite the company in the ass.

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  6. Anon Feb. 7 wrote ...... "And the company shut down servers, Internet and e-mail when announcing the job cuts to those being cuts and the rest of the staff. A blackout of sorts, I guess."

    Does that not frighten anyone to death????
    Does that not smack of what is routinely done to papers in communist countries? Or is it just me?

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  7. A reality check of sorts -- we lost our pre-press department YEARS ago. In fact, I'm a little surprised Niagara still had one and people are making a big deal out of losing it, since everyone else's has been gone for quite some time.
    Maybe those at places like Niagara that still have some things the rest of us don't should be grateful for what they have while they have it rather than crying when it finally gets taken away.
    Just a thought

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  8. It's a sad comment by the last poster that it has come to where you think that this is the normal way businesses should run.

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  9. So there were 26 people working in the pre-press department in Welland? I worked for a similar sized Sun Media paper, and there were three guys in pre-press, one of whom was only working part time

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  10. Wow, your compassion for people losing their jobs is just so touching. You'll make a fine manager with this company some day.
    Learn some tact. Seriously.

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  11. The 26 in Welland were doing work for Welland, St. Catharines, Niagara Falls, InPort News, Pelham News, and at one point, Cambridge and I think Sarnia at times, too. Not all were full time in Welland either.

    And to the poster at 3:21 - when you lose your job, I won't feel bad for you at all. Don't care what your place is/was like, because obviously you don't care about those who lost jobs where you work. Sure, we may have been lucky in Welland to have one department that handled all that work, but when the people in our workplace lost their jobs, at least we cared. We should cry about it about, we should all cry and shout and scream and rage against the loss of jobs in the industry and any industry for that matter. If you don't care about job loss, no matter where it is, I feel sad for you and what kind of human you are.

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  12. I only wish that the newspaper would be honest with their readers and the citizens of Welland, I have talked to people here in town and nobody has a clue how bad things are.

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  13. Truly, from what I've heard, working for such a sleezy company like Quebecor sucks.

    These people may not realize it at the moment, their layoff was probably a blessing.

    The ones I feed bad about are the ones left behind. Not knowing when their day will come.

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  14. Hmmm, Woodstock & Barrie. not sure if I believe that one, I agree with Anon Feb. 8, try India!

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  15. 26 people doing 5 papers? Nobody thinks that was at least a little bit wasteful? And also... the layoffs have been going on for years now... no one was at least a little prepared for the possibility that something like this might happen?

    I feel for anyone who lost their job, I really do. But at the same time... Most other Sun Media papers are working with much smaller skeletal crews at this point.

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  16. The Standard is advertising for a paginator... wouldn't they offer that up to someone who got canned?

    http://www.mediajobsearchcanada.com/job_view.asp?jobID=20960

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  17. The job that's being offered is to, sort of, replace Kalvin Reid. They won't offer to anyone who got canned. They want someone young and new so they can pay less

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  18. It says a lot about a company when it loses exceptional talent over the past 2 years and then always looks to fill the voids by going with lesser solutions. Way to go. They didn't teach this in HR school.

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  19. Does anyone know who was let go in Welland? Terrible news. Were they there for years? all long-time staffers?

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  20. I lost my job at the Trib almost 2 years ago, to those who just lost their's I truly feel for you. I know it is hard but Trust me there is life after the Welland Tribune. It will get better and you will be happy you are no longer there. I actually feel sorry for those that still work there everyday. Not knowing when there time is up. At least I have peace of mind.

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  21. It's not necessarily the Welland Tribune, I heard they all got raises to stay after some meeting held a short time ago.

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  22. i lost mine the first cut before this, downstairs in the mailroom and then i heard they got raises upstairs after bigwigs came in and set them up, so tell me who's feeling sorry now? those who served for 15 years and got the axe?

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  23. That's just a rumour. There were no raises upstairs.

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  24. I was just up there recently, my how things have changed, they had music on, bigger monitors, desks, moved things around looks different so fast, they seem happier of sorts?

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