It’s a Christmas miracle, sort of: the Post’s Keith Kelly reports today that a “last-minute surge of buyout volunteers”—including people like Jennifer 8. Lee–—means that The Times will only need to lay off around 25 staffers to reach its goal of 100 newsroom cuts. Tallies earlier in the week had suggested that many more would need to be fired.
So what happens now?
The next part of the process gets a little touchy. Apparently, the Times must turn over to the union in advance the names of people it intends to fire. The union frequently raises objections on the basis of seniority.
The Guild yesterday said that it had reached an agreement with management “to resolve their dispute over the calculation of newsroom seniority and several related issues through an accelerated arbitration process that will produce a decision by Monday.”
