Job cuts loom with AOL and Time-Warner merger
By Key
Martin
As Time Warner and AOL corporate executives giddily
announced the biggest corporate merger so far, their
subordinates were already writing the epitaph for the editorial
and research staff of Time Life Books. Job cuts in other
divisions are still to come.
The announcement shocked workers who had been producing the
serial books for 40 years. Half the staff is to be laid off by
February. The rest will go by August from their brand-new
building in Alexandria, Va.--not far from where all the merger
news conferences took place.
Books will now be produced by subcontractors, usually with
workers receiving no benefits or job security. No one worried
how to harness their creative talents to make "content" for the
newly merged company. They were just booted out the door.
When the financial analysts from Wall Street come in to
examine these corporate mergers they are looking for how many
workers can be "downsized." Under the cover of
"efficiencies"--staff cuts and migrating work to lower-paid
areas--they give their "nod" or not, driving stock prices one
way or the other.
A decade ago when Time and Warner merged there were big
staff cuts that provoked a confrontation between unionized
workers and management at the annual stockholders' meeting. The
cutting knives went through the staff slicing hundreds of
journalists and production workers from the magazines.
These publications were among the most highly profitable in
the world. They had no economic need for these cuts.
When 67,000 Time Warner or AOL workers hear "merger" their
first worry is not their retirement savings plan. This plan is
in company stocks that went up, and then went down again. They
worry more about whether or not they will still have their jobs
or reach retirement when it is all over.
The grim tale of Time Life Books received scant attention in
all the hoopla. Yet it is bound to be repeated as the
consolidation of the two media giants spreads.
All the appropriate statements were made about preserving
integrity and jobs of journalism. Still CNN, acquired by Time
Inc. several years ago, has a reputation for ruthless low-wage
approaches, leaving workers in "freelance" dead ends, never
gaining benefits or job security. It satisfies the bosses'
dream of "disposable" workers.
The pressure to push labor costs downward into information
sweatshops is inevitable as the backers of this deal seek to
recoup their investments.
The answer for workers is organizing. They need to unionize
on a wide scale instead of leaving only the isolated
departments and divisions now organized. Then workers would
have an effective voice at the table to say "no" to the
disposable-worker concept management has in mind.
Key Martin is the former chairperson of the Newspaper Guild
at Time Warner.
This article is copyright under a Creative
Commons License.
Workers World, 55 W. 17 St., NY, NY 10011
Email: ww@workers.org
Subscribe wwnews-subscribe@workersworld.net
Support independent news http://www.workers.org/orders/donate.php)
HOME
:: U.S. NEWS ::
WORLD NEWS ::
EDITORIALS ::
SUBSCRIBE ::
DONATE
Email
this article
Printable
page