Newspapers may cut jobs to reduce expenses

"We are beginning to face the reality of reduced resources," said Times President and Chief Operating Officer H. Mason Sizemore. "Downsizing is one real possibility."

P-I Editor and Publisher Roger Oglesby called the striking union's weekend call for a boycott by advertisers and readers "dangerous."

"It was my understanding the Guild said (a boycott) was something it was not going to do," he said.

"Our primary revenue stream is advertising, and an advertising boycott threatens that. The way businesses work, if you start losing revenue, you have to find ways to cut expenses."

Sizemore said there are no current plans for job cuts but added, "It could easily come to that." The company has incurred "extraordinary costs" because of publishing under strike conditions, he said.

"Those are dollars we aren't going to get back," he said. "When you couple that with the threat of reduced advertising that the Guild is talking about, there's no doubt but that we have to adjust to having fewer resources."

On Saturday, members of the Pacific Northwest Newspaper Guild called for readers and advertisers to boycott The Times and the P-I until a new contract is negotiated. The strike began Nov. 21.

No new negotiating sessions have been set in the strike, although a federal mediator continues to stay in touch with the union and the management of the two papers. About 1,000 employees of news, circulation and advertising departments belong to the union, with about 130 of those at the P-I and the remainder at The Times. The two papers publish under a joint operating agreement, with separate newsrooms and joint advertising, circulation and production departments.

Sizemore said it is too early in the process to talk about the number of jobs at risk.

Newsprint and people represent the company's biggest expenditures, he said. The company cannot control the cost of newsprint but can control the cost of its work force.

"Logic will tell you that if you're going to continue in business, the economic reality is to downsize," he said.

Guild spokesman Art Thiel labeled the talk of job cuts a "scare tactic."

"A labor dispute is a convenient excuse to blame industrywide problems on its own workers," he said, adding that both papers have been unable to increase their circulation despite a booming economy and population during the past decade.

"Whatever corporate agenda is at work here -- at The Times or the P-I -- it's going to happen regardless of one labor contract," he said.

But he said the decision to ask for a boycott was made "reluctantly" by employees of both publications who don't want to damage their newspapers.

The union, at first, had avoided calls for a boycott.

"We had held off in hopes that we would see movement from the companies," he said. "We've seen none."

The Guild has said it is willing to reduce its most recent contract demand, he said. Both newspapers have said they won't add any more money to the final offer rejected by the Guild.

The newspapers' final offer included an overall hourly wage raise of $3.30 over six years. The Guild's last demand was a three-year contract with raises totaling $3.25.

Thiel confirmed the union is using a non-union print shop to print the thrice-weekly strike paper, but he said the union was unable to find union printers available and able to do the job.

Rita Hibbard is assistant business editor of the P-I.