Making good on its unofficial Wednesday notification of impending layoffs, the Baltimore Sun told three union advertising employees late Friday that they would be released by mid-December.
“We have reason to believe that there may be more rolling layoffs,” Washington-Baltimore Newspaper Guild Executive Director Cet Parks told The Examiner. “The contract requires four weeks notice, so they could lay others off and the [termination date] would just be pushed back.”
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In a related action Parks said that the union has filed a challenge to Sun Media Group’s plan to transfer the metro daily’s retail advertising sales to its Patuxent Publishing Co.’s sales force, noting that the work shift to sales agents at the group’s weekly newspapers appears to violate a collective bargaining agreement prohibiting the shuffling of job responsibilities.
Claiming no knowledge of the layoffs’ full extent, Angie Kuhl, Guild unit chairwoman at The Baltimore Sun, said in an e-mail that Sun management has yet to hold a contract-required, meeting with union representatives, informing them of projected layoff numbers and targeted departments.
“The Sun began layoffs on Friday at approximately 4 p.m. — no meeting,” Kuhl said. “One advertising sales service clerk, one advertising designer and one marketing analyst were notified. We’ve been told these may not be the only layoffs in our unit.”
A union-management meeting, where layoff details should be conveyed, will take place Tuesday or Wednesday, Parks said.
Sun spokeswomen Judy Berman could not be reached for comment.
