Employees walk out as layoffs loom
By Andy Campbell | The Huffington Post
In a show of solidarity, employees of The New York Times walked out of their office on Thursday to protest layoffs expected to hit the paper’s copy desk.
As part of a 15-minute walkout dubbed a “collective coffee break” by their union, dozens of Times employees facing layoffs and their colleagues marched around the historic paper’s building, chanting, “They say cutbacks, we say fight back!” and “No editors, no piece!”
Several Times employees told HuffPost that 109 copy editors were offered buyouts as part of a company plan to cut copy desk staff down to as few as 50 people. That revelation ― along with a bizarre interview process, labeled “death panels” by employees, in which copy editors were reportedly forced to justify their continued employment ― led the desk to fire back at the company in an open letter to Executive Editor Dean Baquet and Managing Editor Joe Kahn on Wednesday:
“You turned your backs on us,” the letter read.
