The OFS

No Written Business Plan For L.A. Times, Guild Rep Says

By Bob Rawitch

It’s hard to be shocked about anything now going on at the L.A. Times. But many of the OFS group of retirees participating in a Nov. 13 Zoom talk with Times Guild chair Matt Hamilton were surprised when Hamilton reported that, when the union asked for a copy of the paper’s business plan, management’s response was, “it isn’t written down.”

This is at a time when the paper, like the entire newspaper industry, is struggling to slow the decline in print subscribers, increase digital subscriptions, replace revenues once generated by display advertising, and maintain its editorial staff.

On top of that, the paper recently announced plans to sell up to $500 million in shares to members of the public. It released a 30-page slide deck and 249-page offering memorandum for potential investors – neither of which include details of how the company’s leaders expect to return it to profitability.

But there are some positive signs for the editorial staff, Hamilton said. This group, now down to 215 Guild members who have worked for more than three years without a contract, is very close to a new pact, he told the OFS attendees. After a recent nearly 24-hour negotiating session, Hamilton said, the Guild and management reached agreement on most major terms, with only some minor issues still to be negotiated.

[On Friday, Nov. 14, the day after Matt’s talk with the OFS group, Status.news reported that the paper and the Guild did finalize the agreement, which will be presented to union members.]

If those members approve the contract, Times Guild members – who last received a salary increase in 2021 – would receive a total of $8,000 in additional salary over the next three years, an increase of about 7% for most employees. The first year of the new contract would see a $3,000 pay hike.

Lower paid staff members – those now earning $52,000 to $62,000 annually – would receive $13,000 over the same period. Many of these work at Times Community News. Hamilton did not disclose how many staffers fall into this lower pay category.

Hamilton acknowledged that in the negotiations the Guild has not gotten everything it wanted in terms of limiting the number of freelancers, part-timers and contract workers that could be hired, potentially displacing full-time staffers at a lower cost to management, nor where they could work.

But he said the Guild did win some concessions, including more favorable guidelines on work done by newspaper staffers on podcasts and other activities linked to the new L.A. Times Studios that Dr. Soon-Shiong has created.

A major sticking point since the end of the COVID-19 pandemic that has affected editorial staffers who live all over Los Angeles and Orange County has been management’s mandate that all employees return to work in the El Segundo offices, rather than working from home. The Guild has insisted that limitations on telecommuting are a condition of employment that needs to be negotiated within a new contract.

The proposed new contract would require staffers to come into the newsroom four days a week for the first 18 months after the contract goes into effect. But Hamilton said “it is understood” that this policy would be flexibly applied. For example, when a reporter is in the field interviewing someone, that would count as a day in the office.

Hamilton said the paper has had an expansive telecommuting policy over the last four years which provided flexibility to employees to deal with childcare issues, doctor’s appointments, and other health issues. He knew of no staffer who has been disciplined over management’s return-to-office demands, and said the Times policy on this issue was the most liberal of which he was aware.

He described the recent negotiations as much like “couples counseling,” where both sides had to gain trust in each another to be able to move forward.

[“This is not the contract we wanted after three years of bargaining, but it is the deal we have,” Hamilton emailed Guild members, Status.news reported. He told the news site that the members’ vote authorizing a strike was key to breaking the impasse in the talks.

[“For more than three years, the company took pretty extreme positions at the bargaining table,” Hamilton told Status. “Once we unlocked the leverage from the strike vote, that really accelerated the pace of negotiations.]

Hamilton told OFS the Guild has no formal position on the planned $5,000-per-share public stock offering of a new entity that would combine the newspaper, two video ventures, and an e-sports platform. But he pointed out that the documents accompanying the offering have provided greater transparency into the dire financial health of the newspaper, and that, if the offering is successful, the company’s status as a public company would result in greater accountability.

He noted that Dr. Soon-Shiong has lost tens of millions of dollars every year he has owned the paper, and in Hamilton’s view the planned public stock offering demonstrates that the paper’s owner  wants to bring in new partners to continue operating the company under his leadership, rather than to sell it.

He expressed frustration that management has rejected offers from the Guild to help fashion a vision for the future of the paper, and said there are tensions in the working relationships between Dr. Soon-Shiong’s multiple media entities. “Ultimately, it is about control” and who has it, Hamilton said.

An unedited video recording of the OFS session is available at: https://us02web.zoom.us/rec/share/iiAbSobYdwSYDKPoROq_v5PwPLec8d36RPvQhFMkm8EHFlRTyRDbijxZwThEncJK.vGcu5Qvl_IQxuSk5?startTime=1763063559000

Passcode: OFSNov13!