ProJo publisher plans to cut nonunion salaries

DALLAS – A.H. Belo Corp., publisher of The Providence Journal, said it will cut the pay of all nonunion employees making more than $25,000 to help save about $10 million annually as advertising sales continue to plummet.
Chief Executive Officer Robert Decherd said earlier this month in a memo that he would take a 20 percent pay cut and that all worker salaries will be reduced 2.5 percent to 15 percent. The publisher will ask union workers to accept the same cuts, Bloomberg News reported.
“The challenges A.H. Belo and our industry are facing have intensified, reflecting one of the most trying advertising environments our industry has ever encountered,” Decherd said in the memo, posted to the Dallas-based publisher’s Web site.
Newspaper publishers have been cutting jobs, selling assets, slashing their dividends and sharing content to help save costs after industrywide advertising revenue fell 17 percent last year. Barclays Capital said ad sales could plunge 22 percent in 2009.
The publisher may save more than $10 million if its union members accept pay cuts, Chief Financial Officer Alison Engel said last week in an interview, declining to provide a more specific figure.
At the end of 2008 A.H. Belo employed about 450 union members, all in Providence, according to a Providence Journal report.
A.H. Belo Corp. also publishes the Dallas Morning News and Press-Enterprise in Riverside, Calif. •