Timesland contract results in one staff reinstatement after layoffs
For Immediate Release: April 21, 2021
Contact: (540) 339-7635
ROANOKE, Va. — The Iowa-based corporation that owns The Roanoke Times has finalized the details of its recently announced plan to slash newsroom jobs at the paper.
These layoffs, which take effect Friday, are part of a series of cutbacks imposed since the local paper was purchased by Lee Enterprises last year. The newsroom has lost more than 40% of its staff since early 2020 between this week’s layoffs and prior cuts.
The company’s announcement initiated a period during which people could consider buyouts or other arrangements in order to reduce involuntary layoffs.
One person who had faced an involuntary layoff was able to return through that process. Lee Enterprises hadn’t historically offered that option, but the guild fought for it in the labor contract it ratified earlier this year.
Still, the cuts are deep.
One week ago, Lee Enterprises announced it was moving to eliminate nine jobs at the paper. That included four reporters, three editorial assistants, one copy editor and the newsroom’s last remaining digital editor.
“The damage is not just the loss of jobs,” said Amy Friedenberger, a reporter and guild organizer. “This region depends on The Roanoke Times for high-quality journalism, and the people of Southwest Virginia are not well-served by the continued erosion of this newsroom.”
The guild is meeting with local managers as the newsroom reorganizes to compensate for the staffers lost to this new round of rollbacks.
“Losing yet more of our team has been incredibly difficult,” said Alicia Petska, a reporter and guild secretary. “We are heartbroken both personally and professionally.”
“Our focus going forward remains on our readers. We’re determined to keep fighting for them and to find ways to continue providing the best coverage possible.”
The journalists being lost this week include the beat reporters who specialized in covering health care, K-12 education, Virginia Tech, and Radford/Pulaski County.
The restructured newsroom will have a staff of 37 — down from about 64 in early 2020 — reporters, photographers, copy editors, editors and other professionals.
The guild’s contract ensures unionized workers will get certain guaranteed severance benefits. No such protections had been in place prior to the newsroom’s decision to organize last year.
"I remain grateful to the Timesland News Guild, my fellow colleagues, for securing a contract with critical benefits related to layoffs — including a two-week notice period, the option for volunteers and more generous severance — which made the effects of the company's actions on employees less heinous," said Henri Gendreau, a reporter and one of the journalists whose job is being eliminated by this week’s corporate cuts.
### About The Roanoke Times: Serving Southwest Virginia since its founding in 1886, The Roanoke Times publishes a daily newspaper with about 30,000 print subscribers and more than 40,000 digital readers. It is the largest professional news outlet in the region.
### About The NewsGuild-Communications Workers of America: The NewsGuild-CWA represents more than 24,000 journalists and other media workers in the United States, Canada and Puerto Rico, including The Roanoke Times, Laker Weekly, The (Charlottesville) Daily Progress, The Virginian-Pilot and The Washington Post.
