Will it ever stop?

Once again, the Journal Sentinel is offering to buy out employees. A letter to employees on Monday, first reported by Jim Romenesko, says the deal is being offered throughout the company, “including the corporate IT department.” That suggests perhaps newsroom people aren’t the primary target, as newsroom union president Tom Silverstein told members the same day. (That letter is also at Milwaukee Magazine alum Romenesko’s blog.) But Silverstein noted in his correspondence that he made no predictions, “in light of previous curveballs the company has thrown at the last minute.”

Asked about the new buyout offer this week, Silverstein declined comment.

The latest offer comes amid continued labor negotiations on a contract that have been dragging on for nine months. Tensions have been mounting, symbolized by a recent campaign of desk signs that the union, Newspaper Guild Local 51, began passing out about a month ago, as Romensko reported earlier. The first installment contrasted $1 million rank-and-file employees have given up in the last three years against bonuses worth five times as much awarded to the top five executives over that same period.

“We bore the brunt of the layoffs” – the news staff is now half the size it was when the old Journal and Sentinel papers merged in 1995 – “and we bore the large part of the pay cuts,” Silverstein told me when I asked about the desk tent campaign. The last round of contract talks included a 6.6 percent rollback in wages; about one-third of that ...  more