Pacificapocalypse

Oh hell, when will this crap end? In my in-box this morning:

The Guild was given a “heads-up” today that more layoffs are in store for The Chronicle. There were no details as to numbers or departments, but additional information was expected within a day or two. Arrangements are being made for Guild leadership to meet with management representatives. If we hear anything, we will let you know. As always, please check our Web site, www.mediaworkers.org, for updates.

THERE’S NOBODY LEFT!

Well fuck a doodle doo. They’re actually laying people off in the business and advertising section of the once mighty San Francisco Chronicle, right this moment. They’re literally tapping people on the shoulder, telling them and then escorting them from the building.  Is this the way you let people go? So friggin’ archaic. They might as well have a Bugs Bunny cartoon executioner bare-chested in the full face mask with a head lopping axe at the ready. Holy crap. Hey I just had a thought; if they can’t tap you on the shoulder, can they still let you go? I mean if you just dodge them all day, are you cool? Que the Scooby-Doo chase scenes and the Benny Hill music.
Guess who knew first? Not me thank god; the couple that run the little in-house cafe knew it – they were here at 0 dark 30 when the extra security guards showed up.
Extra security?
Well… yeah I suppose that’s just CYA.
More later.

photo credit: ooOJasonOoo

I am Legend
No really *I am*. Find out last Monday morning that the other two people in my department… left the department late Friday. Technically one of them is still with the company, she’s not lost, just doing something completely different. So the first part of this week was hectic getting all that nonsense squared away. All cool now. Think I’ll make myself Manager of my department, or perhaps Vice Admiral. And since I report to… me, I’m anticipating a rather splendid quarterly review. Hurray for me!
That’s called Job Security children.

Pet Sounds
Ok so the Butch Cat is all good to go. He’s healthy and peeing where he’s supposed to all this week, so we feel pretty good about that. It was stressful to say the least, first he’s sick then he’s peeing everywhere except the litter box. But it’s all good now; we’re done with the sub cutaneous fluids and the twice daily meds and he’s back to being a healthy happy pain in the ass. You know, a normal cat.

Wedding stuff.
Court paid off her Fluevog boots that she going to be wearing for the wedding; mine are still in lay-away, but soon baby, soon. She has her first fitting at Dark Garden this afternoon for the dress, which I’m being allowed the honor of attending (what’s the protocol on this? Technically it’s not ‘The Dress’ yet, so…?). We’re meeting the costume maker on Sunday afternoon for my first fitting, which should be pretty cool. We have a tasting with the caterer next weekend, so things are going swimmingly, I think. Oh yeah! And! We received two samples of the wedding invite from the girl on Etsy that Court contacted and they are freaking awesome. Just phenominal. More later.

I saw the saddest thing leaving work yesterday afternoon; stacked up behind the front desk in the lobby were about a half dozen moving boxes marked ‘Hold for xxxxxxx’. All filled with the cleaned out remains of peoples desks. The shoulder taps have started in earnest. On the plus side, the two other people in my department have left… so I am my department. I guess that’s job security of some sort.

photo credit: Brian Daniel Eisenberg

Ok kids; here’s the final score.
The Guild has voted and ratified an agreement on contract changes, to take effect immediately. So what does that mean? First off, Hearst Corp. says 150 people will be let go, most likely starting April 1st. That’s when they file their WARN Act notice. We were informed today that most of the cuts will come from Editorial and Production, but we will be hit also. Management has been instructed to start filling out evaluation forms for all employees starting immediately.

So there you go. We get a little breather until the axe comes down.
Jeez it’s been like living in Warsaw in ‘38; you know it’s coming and you know it’ll be bad. But you really don’t know how bad… maybe they can get Adrian Brody to play me in the movie. I’d be okay with that.

I hate this shit.
Pins and friggin’ needles.
No news is good news? Not in this particular case. We’ve received a couple of updates from the Guild and it’s not looking good. But then again, no matter what happens, the situation is grim. If Hearst Corp. get their demands, the workforce is cut dramatically as well as benefits for the remaining employees, which equals a suck fest.
If the Guild and Hearst can’t reach an agreement, then Hearst puts the paper up for sale and if they don’t get a buyer, they close it all down. 144 years of publication history, just swept away. Which equals an even harder suck fest.
Update from this morning:

Chronicle Unit negotiators met Friday with management representatives
to raise certain issues concerning the company’s latest cost-cutting
proposals. It appeared we made some headway in terms of narrowing our
differences, but the meeting adjourned without an overall tentative
agreement.

The parties plan to resume the discussions on Monday.

Hearst Corp., owner of the Chronicle, announced it would have to sell
or close the 144-year-old newspaper if the Guild and other unions
refused to accept concessions.  At least 150 jobs are expected to be
eliminated from the Guild’s jurisdiction, including news,
advertising, circulation and other departments. Buyouts may reduce
the number of involuntary layoffs.

No deadlines have been set. Management has made it clear that
agreement needs to be reached soon.

I can’t even say ‘hopefully I’ll have more news later today’ ’cause any news is going to be bad at this point.
The consensus in my department, and probably building wide, is that it’s definitely time to have a Plan B ready to go. Because, boys and girls, it’s not a matter of ‘if’ anymore, only ‘when’.

Well it’s been a week since they made the announcement regarding the start of negotiations between the management of the San Francisco Chronicle and the Media Workers Guild (yeah boy, I’m a ‘Guild Member’ – sounds so archaic, I feel like I should be setting type Gutenberg Style like some Dickensian character.. “Please Sir! Might I have a steady paycheck and health coverage?”) We’ve got the list of demands (Okay they call it a ‘Summary of Hearst Proposal to Guild, but “list of demands” sounds way cooler and evil.) from Management, of what concessions they want from the Guild, and it ain’t pretty.

<snip>
…Exclude from Guild protection all recently hired outside advertising, online advertising, ChronDirect salespersons and sales reps for the Gate.
Grievances – Eliminate the right to take new grievances to arbitration without company agreement in each case.
Layoffs – Expand employer’s right to lay off anyone out of seniority. Higher severance for out-of seniority layoffs.
Pensions – Discontinue any further contributions to the pension plan.
<endsnip>

Full text pdf here.

There’s (obviously) a great deal of apprehension in the air, and rumors are everywhere. Some people say this isn’t so much about revenue as it is Hearst Management wanting to break the back of the Guild. And the timing doesn’t make sense to me and others; Hearst has sunk a ton o’ cash into a new 15 year agreement with a new state-of-the-art printing facility in Fremont that is set to make it’s debut in June 2009, so what happens to that?
No one really has a clue, but I do know that many people are expecting the worse and making plans now.

Well here it is:

Mark Adkins, President, made the announcement at 2:15 – as of 2:30 this afternoon, San Francisco Chronicle management is in negotiations with the union to start making emergency cuts in expenses to try an stem a $50m operating loss.  Partial from the memo by Frank Vega, Chairman and Publisher:

First and foremost of these cost savings will be a significant reduction in force across all areas of our operation affecting both represented and non-represented employees. We will shortly begin discussions with union leadership on proposals. Our current situation dictates that we accomplish these cost savings quickly. Business as usual is no longer an option.

If we are unable to accomplish these reductions in the immediate future, Hearst Corporation, which owns The Chronicle, has informed us that it will offer the newspaper for sale or close it altogether. We know these are painful times for everyone and we face difficult choices. We share in the sincere hope that we will reach agreement with all parties involved on the concessions needed to continue to operate and provide the Bay Area with a quality newspaper.

And here we are. Dammit I think I might be losing my job.

Oh great, this I need right now. Just got this in a company wide email:

To: SFC-All Users
Subject: Chronicle Communication – This Evening’s Planned Protest
We have been advised that there is a protest planned today from 5 until 7 p.m. at The Chronicle building at 901 Mission St. The protest is in response to the media’s coverage of events in the Middle East.

If you make me miss my bus, you keffia wearing hipster trustafarian douchebags, I’m gonna start crackin; skulls.

“We are made to believe when we cannot understand, and to obey so that we will never understand”

It’s been 30 years, and I still remember exactly where I was when I heard the news that a bunch of crazy people had killed themselves in some jungle somewhere. I was at the now closed James D. Phelan middle school in San Jose, and I had just turned 11 years old.

Crazy people in a jungle somewhere.

That’s all I knew then, but as time progressed and the story unfolded, I and the rest of the world, learned how absolutely bug shit insane the situation was.

I still don’t understand what really happened. There is, and always will be, a strong San Francisco connection to the People’s Temple. The majority of his followers came from Hunters Point, Bay View and Vis Valley and they still have relatives here. He had his fingers in City Hall and was courted and valued by politicians, as a guaranteed ‘vote getter’. So perhaps that’s why, people, good people, looked the other way (shame on you Chronicle, you fucking knew better) when word got out, before they fled to the jungle, that things were going very wrong inside the People’s Temple.
What force drives, what are to all expectations, reasonably intelligent people, to give up their lives, their homes and deny their families and move to a jungle, an absolutely primitive campsite really, thousands of miles away on an entirely different continent.
What makes committing, logically and methodically an incredibly illogical and insane act, seem reasonable?
They killed their children. They squirted the Kool-Aid down their throats and killed their children.

Kool-Aid in a jungle or new Nikes in San Diego. Something moves these people to commit these horrific acts.I don’t think I’ll ever understand, and frankly I’m not entirely convinced that I want to understand what drives these people.

There’s a lot of info out there; here’s a good place to start.
Jonestown 30 Years Later – SFGate.com