L.A. Times Furloughs Non-Union Workers, Cuts Senior Staff Pay

The Los Angeles Times has an owner with deep pockets, but unfortunately that hasn’t made the newspaper immune to the financial realities of the coronavirus. The newspaper on Tuesday decided to furlough a number of employees not in editorial, and also not represented by the union, but some editorial employees and managers will be hit with pay cuts and all staff will no longer receive a match to 401k savings accounts.   The furloughed employees are said to be mainly on the business side of the operation, like sales. A representative of the paper would not comment on specifics, but it’s thought that the furloughs hit around 20 employees. The furloughs are to last up to 16 weeks, unpaid, and start Friday, according to an internal memo. In addition to the unpaid furloughs, some senior editorial staff will be working with reduced pay, on a scale of between 5 percent and 15 percent, depending on salary. The pay cuts are set to last 12 weeks. In the memo to staff, Chris Argentieri, president and chief operations officer of the newspaper group bought in 2018 by medical industry billionaire Patrick Soon-Shiong, said, “It’s difficult to capture in words the challenges we are all facing, both personally

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