Cowles Announces 5% Pay Cuts
In a half-hour meeting with Spokesman-Review employees this afternoon, Publisher Stacey Cowles announced that the paper will cut salaries 5% across the board for all managers, all non-union employees and, with their voluntary consent, all union employees. In a prepared statement, Cowles said: "The good news is that we remain a solvent, going concern as a news media organization and our just-released Belden market research shows that our readership levels have remained stable over the past four years. The bad news is that the turbulent and unpredictable nature of the current recessionary economy generally, and the advertising and newspaper markets specifically, is forcing us to cut costs outside our usual budget cycle." Employees who earn less that $11 per hour will be exempt from the cuts. Cowles concluded: "I cannot guarantee restoration of the reduction, but we may be able to visit this issue in a year, depending on how the economy and our business changes in that time."