Los Angeles Times to lay off ‘significant’ number of employees, union says
Al Jazeera
LA Times Guild announces one-day walk-out to protest planned layoffs.
The Los Angeles Times is planning to lay off a “significant” number of journalists, the newspaper’s union has said, becoming the latest media outlet to shed employees in an era of collapsing advertising revenues.
The LA Times Guild said that it would organise a one-day walk-out on Friday to oppose the planned layoffs.
“The management of the Los Angeles Times has announced that it intends to imminently lay off a significant number of journalists, and is asking the Guild to gut seniority protections in our union contract so they have vastly more freedom to pick whom to lay off,” the guild said in a statement on Thursday.
“This will greatly damage our ability to provide the accountability journalism so important to Southern California.”
While the newspaper’s management has not announced the number of planned layoffs, the jobs will affect “at least” 100 journalists, or about 20 percent of the newsroom, the LA Times reported on Thursday, citing “knowledgeable people”.
