Victoria Times Colonist cuts 4 staff just weeks after call for voluntary resignations

CAM WELCH | J-Source

[~] Victoria’s Times Colonist has lost four staff members after the Victoria-Vancouver Island Newspaper Guild was given a layoff notice for five positions in late November 2017.

General assignment reporter Sarah Petrescu accepted a buyout while columnist Robert Amos and reporters Amy Smart and Mario Annicchiarico were laid off.

The guild avoided two layoffs in October 2016 with a cost-savings proposal in which staff members reduced their work days by one day every four weeks. When that deal expired and the notice of five layoffs came, the guild crafted a proposal involving 10 furlough days per person but it was rejected by the membership.

“A lot of the members decided that they’d given the company enough over the last 12 months,” said guild president Chris Carolan, “and I just don’t think there was an appetite to go through the same process for another year.”

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