Pension freezes, newspaper buildings with no buyers
The Seattle Times plans to freeze the pensions of its nonunion employees, effective Feb. 6. This comes only days after announcing that those same nonunion workers must also take an unpaid week of leave to save the company money.
Andrea James of the Seattle Post-Intelligencer covers the cutbacks, and includes this rather distressing bit of news to illustrate just how badly the economy has tanked:
The McClatchy Co. owns a 49.5 percent stake in The Times Co. That stake has lost most of its carrying value and is now worth $7.94 million, compared with $102.2 million in 2006, according to filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission.
Behind the times: For newspapers that thought they could get well by selling off their buildings, that time appears to have passed. The Associated Press reports:
At least half a dozen newspaper companies have said this year they plan to sell their buildings, some with the intention of leasing back space for their news operations. Others are moving to smaller offices to save money as staffs dwindle and the era of commanding downtown newspaper buildings appears near an end.
The newspapers could hardly have picked a worse time to put their buildings on the block, with the value of commercial real estate deals plummeting from just a year ago.
The rest of the article lists a number of newspapers feeling the real-estate crunch, and is worth your time.
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