Two Realities
When it comes to working for Gannett, parent company of The Indianapolis Star, there are two realities — the reality of those of us who actually make this company profitable every day, and the reality of upper management, who reap most of the rewards.
Look at the reality of our copy editors, whose jobs are about to be outsourced to Kentucky. Gannett wants to put these employees out of work by the end of the year. Management says it’s too much to give them 2 weeks of severance for each year of service. Yet, in the reality of the Gannett executive, it’s acceptable to give the CEO a golden parachute of $23-million.
Look at the reality of health insurance. Gannett wants to shortchange Guild workers on health coverage by providing less money for insurance than other employees. It would prefer we take their insurance, which costs more and covers less. Compare that to the reality of Gannett CEO Bob Dickey, whose executive bonus this year alone was $1.8-million.
Look at the reality of pay.
Half our workforce at The Indianapolis Star is still recovering from a 10% pay cut in 2009. And since then, pay hasn’t kept up with inflation. Worse still, is the plight of our custodial workers at the Indianapolis printing plant. They took the 10% pay cut and they haven’t seen a pay raise in more than four (4) years. These are the lowest paid employees in our company. Some have been with us 15 years and make $10.85 an hour. They struggle to buy groceries. One worker told me she supplements her budget with trips to the food pantry.
Gannett would deny this woman and her co-workers a pay raise of $1 an hour. Yet in the last three years, Gannett has doubled the pay of CEO Bob Dickey. He’s now paid $5.9 million a year.
That’s Gannett’s reality — enriching its executives at the expense of its employees.
Indianapolis NewsGuild 