To prevent layoffs on the heels of a sharp decline in advertising revenue, Freedom Communications–the parent company of The Orange County Register–today offered voluntary severance packages to employees, according to sources.
“If not enough people opt out, then there will be layoffs,” a veteran of the paper told the Weekly.
The package under consideration includes two weeks of pay for every year of service, plus $50 for every $1,000 of base pay and 26 additional weeks of paid health insurance.
Dozens of employees–perhaps as many as 50 or more–need to accept the package to prevent the company from taking more drastic steps. The company delivered the news through department supervisors. There was no companywide meeting.
“People were initially shocked, followed by a feeling of, 'Well, I'm not surprised given the downsizing going on in the industry,'” said a Reg employee.
In July, new Freedom Communications CEO Scott Flanders announced that he was re-organizing the company's newspaper divisions to cut costs.
A company spokeswoman did not return a call for comment at the time of this post.
Ironically, the Irvine-based company is willing to push out (much needed) veteran employees while spending millions of dollars a year to launch journalistically questionable spin-offs such as Squeeze OC and OC Post.
CNN-featured investigative reporter R. Scott Moxley has won Journalist of the Year honors at the Los Angeles Press Club; been named Distinguished Journalist of the Year by the LA Society of Professional Journalists; obtained one of the last exclusive prison interviews with Charles Manson disciple Susan Atkins; won inclusion in Jeffrey Toobin’s The Best American Crime Reporting for his coverage of a white supremacist’s senseless murder of a beloved Vietnamese refugee; launched multi-year probes that resulted in the FBI arrests and convictions of the top three ranking members of the Orange County Sheriff’s Department; and gained praise from New York Times Magazine writers for his “herculean job” exposing entrenched Southern California law enforcement corruption.