On May 17, The Denver Post announced the elimination of three home delivery districts and gave the required two-week layoff notice of three district managers and three assistant district managers. During the two-week window, more than enough volunteers signed up to resign or retire with severance. The Post accepted the resignations from the three most senior district managers and assistant district managers who had volunteered, so no one was involuntarily laid off.
On June 11, The Post announced the elimination of five more Denver Newspaper Guild-covered positions, two in the newsroom, two in circulation and one in IT. The newsroom positions include the assistant librarian and one part-time sports reporter. The other affected positions include two secretaries in the circulation department and one network specialist in IT.
Part-time positions are not covered by the layoff provisions in the contracts, so the one part-time writer will be displaced. There is only one assistant librarian and one network specialist, so if nothing changes in the plan to eliminate those positions those two individuals will be displaced with severance and will be placed on a recall list.
There are three secretaries in the circulation department. During the next two weeks, the most senior of the three has the right to volunteer to resign with severance. Otherwise, the two least senior employees will be laid off.
The work performed by displaced employees must be assigned to remaining Guild-covered employees, not managers. The Guild is looking into the planned destination of that work.
The layoffs are “a result of our continued consolidation of the company,” according to the notice provided to the Guild. It has been about six months since the layoff triggered by the outsourcing of the customer service call center and a little over a year since the elimination of all copy editor positions.
Meanwhile, the Performance Evaluation Subcommittee continues to meet to draft a process for evaluations and a ranking to be used in the event of future newsroom layoffs, as outlined in the contract.
If you have questions, contact a Guild representative or email info@denvernewspaperguild.org.
