Friday, July 3, 2009

Sweet!.... laid off VP will walk away with $690,000 lump sum payment - if she signs a waiver

Laid off VP Lynn Dickerson stands to get a $690,000 lump sum payment from cash-strapped McClatchy-- once she signs a waiver.



Under the Separation Agreement and subject to the terms and conditions set forth therein, effective July 17, 2009, Ms. Dickerson is resigning from all offices and other positions that she holds with the Company and her employment with the Company will terminate on such date. In connection with such termination, Ms. Dickerson will be entitled to the following severance payments and benefits:

i. Subject to executing a waiver and release of claims agreement in favor of the Company, a lump sum severance payment equal to $690,000; and

ii. If Ms. Dickerson elects health care continuation coverage under COBRA, for one year following the effective date of her termination (or, if earlier, the date Ms. Dickerson terminates her COBRA coverage), the Company will pay Ms. Dickerson’s COBRA premiums for group health insurance coverage.


I wonder how much of the "lump sum severance payment" will be MNI stock.
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Updated: rank and file employees are not happy:

"Notice that McClatchy releases this outrageous info on a day before the holiday weekend. She's also getting 1 year of health insurance paid for by the company in addition to the $690K payout for being a do-nothing bureaucratic hack. How many of us rank-and-file employees were offered such a package from a company on the brink of bankruptcy?..."
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29 comments:

Unknown said...

Ah --- so THAT's why she never bothered to respond to any of our emails about Barry Shlachter and his defamatory and shameless article.

Sweeping it under the rug because you were going to walk with a sweet severance -- way to handle a bad situation, Lynn!

McClatchy Watch said...

When you're busy ironing out your severance package, no need to bother responding to reader complaints.

Anonymous said...

I think you're looking at it all wrong guys. I believe that she has done at least 690,000 dollars worth of damage to MNI. Give her what she is due. Let's flood them with letters demanding 1,690,000 dollars! What's 20 or 30 less propagandists running around telling you the virtues of 1000 dollar fines if you don't sign onto Obamacare?

Anonymous said...

Notice that McClatchy releases this outrageous info on a day before the holiday weekend. She's also getting 1 year of health insurance paid for by the company in addition to the $690K payout for being a do-nothing bureaucratic hack. How many of us rank-and-file employees were offered such a package from a company on the brink of bankruptcy? When it comes to execs, anything goes when it's time to raid the company store, but employees who actually do the work and get the paper out every night get wage and benefit cuts as well as layoffs. Wake up fellow employees, organize to protect your interests. Join the Newspaper Guild.

Anonymous said...

McClatchy pays so well for incompetence, starting with Pruitt and working on down the line. I always thought Howard Weaver was such a blowhard dolt, but you have to give him props for jumping ship first. Lynn Dickerson must have been hired to fill the female quota, and if she was black, or any minority female, she would probably still have her job.

Anonymous said...

How does McClatchy have the nerve to payout these sorts severance payments, while they turn-up the A/C to save pennies? I say pay these leeches in MNI stock. I am still angry about Pruitt, Weaver and the others bailing out of their stock, and all on the same day after a meeting. Geez, there must have been some sort of vote of non-confidence in the company, and they all should have been fired, then and there. But no, they were allowed to continue their path to ruin. All the papers are still top-heavy in overpriced, nonproductive, drivel scribblers, IMO.

Kevin Gregory said...

Dickerson reportedly made $1 million in 2008.

Anonymous said...

What could Dickerson have possibly done to be worth one million dollars? No wonder McClatchy is going broke. While the real working journalists were being paid near slave wages, these fat cats were licking the cream from the top. Man, as more facts come out, the more this whole McClatchy company turns my stomach.

Anonymous said...

Why wouldn’t a sane person walk away from a sinking ship? If MNI goes into bankruptcy, these huge severance payouts might not fly, right?

Anonymous said...

The only way I could feel better about this huge severance payment to this lousy bureaucrat would be if she never works again ‘in the business’, or anywhere. Perhaps she sees what greed has done not only to McClatchy, but the entire newspaper industry, and realizes she is a part of the mismanagement.
Look in the mirror Ms. Dickerson, and behold a greedy scumbag.

Anonymous said...

Why hasn’t Gary Pruitt been fired? A polecat with nine lives, and he has used up all of them and more.

Anonymous said...

Another one of those e-mails: Colleagues, we need to shitcan another 18 employees, but what a deal we have for you.
______________

-----Original Message-----
From: Keane, Kevin
Sent: Wed 7/1/2009 4:34 PM
To: &EB News All
Cc: Anstandig, Marshall; Rounds, David; Butler, Dave
Subject: staff note

Colleagues,

I had always held out hope that business would bounce back quickly enough that we would be able to avoid further staff reductions this fiscal year. Unfortunately whatever rebound there is in this economy hasn't reached the advertising market yet. We project revenues will continue their skid well into next year, which means expenses will need to come down accordingly.

Today we're announcing that we will be eliminating 18 full-time positions in the newsroom (managers and rank and file employees) by mid summer. We will notify the union today as well. Employees let go will receive a week's salary for each year worked, with a minimum of two weeks and a maximum of 12. The company will also pay the employer portion of Cobra benefits for health care for three months.

Read the rest @
http://cl1p.net/cctimes

Anonymous said...

Why wouldn’t a sane person walk away from a sinking ship? If MNI goes into bankruptcy, these huge severance payouts might not fly, right?

=========
Exactly. Now you know why they continue to hang on. They're just milking it for everything they can. Pruitt et al have no incentive to do anything else.

Anonymous said...

Weaver didn't bail, he got shoved out the door. Dickerson signed a waiver not to talk about the incompetence inside corporate. Basically, she's being paid off to keep her mouth shut. It's standard proceedure in big business - give the boot but make them sign a contract that prohibits bad-mouthing. In return there's a fat payday lump sum.

Anonymous said...

Where is my $690,000.00 ???
The cobra I pay is $444.00 a month. It sure would be nice to have health insurance covered for a year for FREE ......

Too bad we couldn't file a class action suit against Gary and the Blunders for destroying all the peoples lives who have worked for the company for years.

Anonymous said...

To Anonymous 8:36: To Gary Pruitt, you're toilet paper. He never did care about your Cobra, paycheck, retirement, etc. How naive can you be? All he cares about is his legacy which is a big fat belly laugh at this point.

Anonymous said...

8:46... We are worse than toilet paper we are nothing more than shit under their shoes !!

Anonymous said...

"Why wouldn’t a sane person walk away from a sinking ship?"
Walk away!?!...Hell, she's getting in a speed boat and leaving the flotsam and jetsam in her wake!!!


"Today we're announcing that we will be eliminating 18 full-time positions in the newsroom (managers and rank and file employees) by mid summer."
...I bet the amount they save will just about add up to $690,000 plus a years worth of COBRA.

"The cobra I pay is $444.00 a month. " Lucky you...my payment was over $1,400 a month, hence I have no insurance now.

Anonymous said...

They should get rid of Hendricks and Geiger... they are both on Facebook ALL day long! What's up with that?

John Altevogt said...

Hendricks apparently seeing the writing on the wall is doing a bit of networking, I'm thinking.

I will say this, assuming that we're talking about Mike Hendricks, if nothing else, he will dialog with his critiques on Prime Buzz and he does not censor their comments like a couple of other little princesses down there I can think of.

John Altevogt said...

Damn, yet another error! That should be critics, not critiques. Ah, the endless pursuit of perfection.

Anonymous said...

No, Chris Hendricks... and it's not networking they are doing. One of them plays games all day and the other posts about every single activity he did during the day... gym, lunch, etc.

Anonymous said...

Frist mate: "Capn', There be an iceburg dead ahead"

Capn' Gary: "It doesn't look very big, full steam ahead. Jettison the ALL the cargo, women and children and the life boats, they are just slowing us down!"

First mate: "I be wrong Capn', it looks like a white whale."
...to Bee continued...

Anonymous said...

That's blood money. Money made from the suffering of all us former employees whose lives MNI has destroyed.

Anonymous said...

10:15 PM Said: That's blood money. Money made from the suffering of all us former employees whose lives MNI has destroyed.

MNI didn't destroy my life when they laid me off...in fact I have been enjoying the free time and going back to school to switch careers (all paid for by EDD than you very much). I guess it is all how you look at it and where you are financially. Sure things are tight and I was hoping to retire in a few years, but now I am free at last, free at last...Thank God (and I do) I am free at last!!!

Anonymous said...

1:57... If you don't mind me asking, what are you training for ?

Anonymous said...

That is SO true about Geiger, he is on Facebook all day, and he's not the only corp manager doing that. They could lose him, save $$$ and not miss a thing. He is roundly despised.

Anonymous said...

1:46 PM

Totally agree with you, that idiot was a disaster at BeeIT and we were so overjoyed when he left. Did not know that you guys up on the 3rd floor despised him too.

Anonymous said...

Oh, yeah: with the white hot fire of a thousand suns. He killed that dept. A more petty man you will not find.

And why are there 4 managers and 5 employees in that group?