workers

Verizon Workers Strike

Greg Bensinger, Reporter, The Wall Street Journal in News on August 7, 2011 at 11:30 am PT

About 45,000 Verizon Communications Inc. workers walked off the job Sunday after negotiators failed to reach an agreement on a new contract, marking the first strike at the telecommunications giant in 11 years.

1000 AOL to Employees Go the Way of Dial-Up

John Paczkowski in News on January 11, 2010 at 10:00 am PT

AOL Begins Firing Employees Who Wouldn’t Leave

Peter Kafka in Media on January 11, 2010 at 9:33 am PT

In November, AOL CEO Tim Armstrong said he needed 2,500 “volunteers” to give up their jobs, but not enough of them got the message–only 1,100 walked away on their own. Now Armstrong is entering the second phase of his corporate slimdown and is firing another 1,000-plus employees.

U.S. Senators Tell EU to Approve Oracle-Sun Deal…Typical Americans

John Paczkowski in News on November 25, 2009 at 6:01 am PT

With Sun Microsystems beginning to founder as it awaits European Commission clearance of its acquisition by Oracle, a group of U.S. senators is urging the European Commission to speed up its approval of the deal. In an open letter, the group essentially tells European regulators to “get on with it,” warning that further delay could result in additional layoffs at Sun.

Layoffs Begin at AOL

John Paczkowski in News on November 10, 2009 at 9:30 am PT

Microsoft Starts the Layoff Machine Again With Thousands of Cuts: Steve Ballmer’s Memo to the Troops

Peter Kafka in Media on May 5, 2009 at 7:45 am PT

Here comes the second round of layoffs at Microsoft, following a first round that started in January. Today’s cuts will likely end up costing about 3,000 workers their jobs. Microsoft had previously warned that it would cut up to 5,000 jobs by 2010. The good news, says CEO Steve Ballmer: The newest round means “we are mostly but not all done” with layoffs. Here’s Ballmer’s memo to the troops.

New York Times: We Won’t Have to Shutter the Boston Globe After All

Peter Kafka in Media on May 4, 2009 at 9:10 am PT

The New York Times, which had threatened to shut down the Boston Globe unless that paper’s unions agreed to major concessions, says it got what it needed from the Globe’s workers after all. Once exception: The Globe’s unionized editorial employees, who have yet to come to terms with the paper’s owner. The Times make ominous sounds about what might happen–“evaluating our alternatives”–but nothing specific.

Did Apple Just Fire 1,600 Retail Workers? Nope.

Peter Kafka in Media on April 24, 2009 at 12:21 pm PT

Question of the day: Did Apple somehow lay off 10 percent of its retail staff in the last quarter without anyone noticing until today? Answer: No. My bloggy brethren are hopped up about Apple’s disclosure, via its most recent quarterly filing with the SEC, that its retail group had “approximately 14,000 full-time equivalent employees” at the end of March. Three months earlier that number had been 15,600. Boring but important distinction: Cutting back hours is different than laying people off.