Reuters and US union agree on voluntary buyouts

The company also agreed on Thursday to provide job-hunting assistance to most of the seven members of The Newspaper Guild of New York whose jobs have been marked for elimination by year-end, the union said on Friday. The seven are two journalists in New York whose work will be done in Bangalore and four reporters and a photographer in Miami.

The job cuts are part of a five per cent global reduction in editorial staffing announced by Reuters president and editor-in-chief Stephen Adler last week.

The Guild said the company agreed to increase by six weeks’ pay the amounts it earlier proposed adding to each of the three main employee groups in its package. This is on top of the standard severance pay of two weeks per year of service, up to a maximum of 52 weeks. The agreement is subject to final review by the union.

Guild president Bill O’Meara noted that under the agreement its longest-serving members – those hired in the 1970s – would receive a total of 73 weeks of severance with medical coverage, or almost a year-and-a-half of payments.

Reuters said no eligible employees would be refused a buyout, barring the unlikely event that a high number of volunteers in a particular operation leaves it unable to function.

Letters spelling out the terms of the scheme, including deadlines for responding, are expected to go out by the end of next week, the Guild said. ■