Will continue until June 13

People magazine has announced its intention of closing the Edit Operations Department, with the loss of five jobs, including three Guild-covered employees as well as the department’s new managers. Officially called Page Coders on Guild category lists, the Guild employees are generally referred to as Page Production Coordinators at People. The surviving members of the Edit Ops department, also currently called Page Coders, will move to the Art Department, where they will join the current Layout Artists in a new job title, Production Artist.

The Guild strongly believes that these layoffs are automation-driven, and it has made that argument repeatedly to management, which has rejected it, calling the layoffs “economic.” Under an automation layoff, the Guild must be informed six months in advance of the changes. It is with reluctance, then, that the Guild is putting out the call for volunteers, but it has no choice because management has refused to budge on its June 13 deadline.

Swapping jobs for packages

Until June 13 management will be accepting volunteers from other magazines who want to take layoff packages, also called Reduction in Force (RIF) packages. Management has said that it may consider volunteers on a case-by-case basis after that date. Here is how it works.

The page production coordinators at People have been doing the following work:

· Distribute the editorial mockup.

· Update the dummy book.

· Update the art Department wall with edit pages.

· Copy and distribute layouts.

· Log layouts, cut numbers and track them on FileMaker Pro 5.

· Archive the past issues on QPS Manager 2.1.

· Maintain a resend log in Quark 4.11.

· Make style sheets from Quark layouts.

· Assigning components from Quark layouts.

· Squeeze and stretch text in copydesk and on Quark layouts.

· Fix fonts that cannot be used in system.

· Ship pages to imaging for weekly and specials.

Employees who fill similar functions at other magazines may volunteer for a layoff package, by coming forward either to Human Resources or the Guild.

The current People Page Coders targeted for layoffs would then interview at the new magazine, and the manager would decide on hiring the targeted People employee. If the manager hires the employee, the non-People employee would get the RIF package.

If you are interested and want to inquire about a possible package, contact the Newspaper Guild (call Unit Chairperson John Shostrom at 522-3965 or Grievance Chairperson Edith Fried at 522-3867) or Julie Pettinelli (522-3329), the People HR representative.

This, Time Inc.’s sixth layoff of the year, comes at the most lucrative Time Inc. magazine, responsible for generating hundreds of millions of dollars in profits for the company. When the Guild pointed this out at a meeting concerning the layoffs, it was told that it wasn’t looking at the big picture.

Translation: You are paying for AOL’s sins. The Guild thinks we all do get the big picture – we just take a different view of it. The Guild hopes the company will soon see that cutting workers from healthy, profitable units is not the way to heal this troubled company.