I think you're right about both points, Mark. Generally, larger employers cover 100% of the cost for employees, but only a percentage of the cost for dependents. (It didn't used to be that way, but a lot of modern business practices weren't the way they now are.) Both my wife and I have availed ourselves of COBRA in past years, but the only time we needed to take advantage of the Cal-COBRA extension it was with an employer who was too small to self-insure. So I'll defer to you on that point.
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KNBR to cut nightly sports call-in show after 51 years
- Thread starter Radiomusik
- Start date
How about having your parents involved in a car accident that lands your father in a hospital, in a coma for nearly a week. And then discovering that his employer terminated him while there. That actually happened to my family, and that's my personal bogey for a scumbag employer. (And I once worked for someone who was running a Ponzi scheme. I've been let go from jobs a few times, but never as callously as that.)
Also brutal. Business is harsh.
Here's how little protection there is as regards health care coverage in a layoff (from my experience in the January, 2020 iHeart layoffs):
Your employee health care is good until the end of the month. I got hit on the 15th, so I had two weeks under that plan.
You're given up to 60 days to continue your coverage via COBRA, and it's allegedly retroactive, but I wouldn't want to explain that to a doctor or a hospital on day 45 if I hadn't already exercised that option.
And it is BRUTALLY expensive, since most employers at worst pick up half the premium while you're employed. As recently as last year, I knew of a radio station that covered all of the premium for its employees and 50% for spouses/dependents.
So, choosing COBRA means a colossal jump in health care costs when your income drops to zero from that same source (after any severance expires).
ObamaCare (here in CA, Covered California) wasn't any better when it happened to me almost four years ago, but since the passage of the American Rescue Act, the healthcare marketplaces have income-based caps on premiums that make them more affordable.
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Over the years having been in the position of bringing cuts to the corporate table myself, it's easily the toughest part of the job. I, nor anyone that I've ever met in that same position take doing so lightly. As BigA mentioned; there are usually pretty generous severance packages involved. Sure in this example, it sucks having to shut something down after fifty years, but business environments change with time. The future for selling ads on traditional radio is becoming bleaker, especially for AM stations. That's just the facts.
In business, everything is done in quarters. The finish line is really the beginning of Q4. When it comes to radio or TV, your sales teams beat the bushes to bring dollars in the door, but it doesn't happen in a contiguous stream. There are up weeks and months and down weeks and months. Clients unexpectedly cancel, and the push to bring in makeup income while still pushing to grow, or just maintain revenue before the end of the quarter rolls around. When revenue and expense are tallied up going into the fourth quarter, that's when you implement any cost-savings plans so the company is in the strongest position to keep things afloat in Q1. Ultimately you hope to avoid the cutting, but lately, it's been unavoidable.
There's only so much consideration one can do when it comes to a company planning around staff's personal lives. If it were up to most GM's and corporate folks, they would only hire and never cut FTE's. The size of your staff is generally thought of as a measurement of prosperity because your company is providing employment that contributes to the community and associated tax base.
This, of course, varies by company and by the employee being let go. There are companies who have a rule on severances---for example, two weeks' pay for every year of service. If you're laying off someone who's been with the company 26 years (and I've seen this happen), you're giving them a year's pay in severance.
For people with less time at the company, it's less money. Folks there a year or two are looking at two to four weeks' pay---and many stations don't have that x time= x severance rule. People at those places who don't have severance already spelled out in their employment contracts could end up with only two weeks' pay, regardless of their tenure.
These appear to be all veteran employees. Some likely go back to Susquehanna.
The most recently accepted severance model seems to be based on tenure. As BigA mentioned, these are veteran talent for this show. They'll probably get a minimum of one month of severance per service year.
During COVID, the company I worked for started doing buyouts for anyone over 55, or more than 15 years with the company. Those buyouts were also based on tenure. That seems to be an even more even-handed cost cutting model.
And that's generous, and good for those people. But killing a local program usually affects more than talent, including less-senior support roles---producers, etc, assigned to that show.
I agree.
The situation with WARN acts (and state "mini-WARN" acts) is far more complex than either you or I have represented it to be. This is a good summary: Stay in Line with Federal, State and Local WARN Laws
Then you can become your own worst boss!
This was not a mass layoff, nor is the office closing, which is why I said this doesn't apply,
Did you actually read the article that I linked to before posting your reaction?
Yes, that's how I came to my conclusion.
This is actually normal in the (non-broadcast) corporate world. It can vary, and there also tends to be a maximum on severance - for example, a maximum severance of one year - but it's there.
My own experiences in both the broadcast world and the non-broadcast corporate world led me to the conclusion that one gets far more protection in the corporate world, even if there are no absolute guarantees. In the last broadcast job I had, in a major market, I got no severance. I was at least able to continue insurance at my own expense (this was pre-COBRA). But there wasn't much else. I hope people are able to do better than that now.
You're right that there are no guarantees. No company or organization is obligated to give you a job.
In my case, I was a corporate officer and my position was eliminated during the 2008 recession, as were other similar corporate positions. Looking at the auto industry, the big three automakers went through a cut a lot of 'white collar' jobs last year. This assumption that corporate or management job cuts aren't a thing just isn't true.
A lot depends on tenure, and whether the position you held was cut, or you were terminated for cause/performance.
Agreed on all parts and in some cases the time when contracts expire especially at companies that pay their workers on the contract system is also the time when staff is removed from the company. Also depends on the goals of new leadership sometimes when they take over a company.
Just to clarify, the "people in no danger of experiencing holiday season hardship themselves [who] dictate when companies must inflict that pain on their workforce" to whom I referred in my first post in this thread are the Wall Street types who push money or advice around for a living, not the corporate bosses and executives who have to do the RIFs. The money guys keep their jobs so long as the advice they give or actions they prompt achieve the savings and/or increased profit margins on a consistent basis. You never hear of mass layoffs at investment houses, brokerage firms or financial advice factories unless they've been caught doing something illegal.
I know most of us are insulated from Wall Street, but investment brokers and analysts lose their jobs all the time. When successful, they generally are well-compensated, but the reality isn't Gordon Gecko or Wolf of Wall Street movie, but when things tighten-up, there are cuts just like any other industry:
Wall Street Has Been Quietly Cutting 20,000 Jobs In 2023
U.S. banks quietly cut 20,000 employees this year with more job losses to come. The layoffs on Wall Street are a worrisome sign of the continuing broader economic challenges facing the U.S.
www.forbes.com
Complete List of Investment Banking Layoffs (2023) - Buyside Hustle
It’s a bloodbath out there. There is no question about it. Revenues at investment banks are down 50%+ year over year as rising interest rates and slowing economic conditions have put a complete pause on most M&A activity around the world. It’s crazy how an industry can go from having an insanely...
www.buysidehustle.com
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Wall Street banks shed jobs to ease cost pressures
Banking heavyweights including Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley have announced a string of layoffs this year as part of a cost-cutting spree to better position themselves for a murky economic climate.
www.reuters.com
Layoffs in that sector tend to be "quiet" (to quote one of the articles linked) because of generous severance packages that typically requiring signing NDAs and nondisparagement agreements in order to receive them.I know most of us are insulated from Wall Street, but investment brokers and analysts lose their jobs all the time. When successful, they generally are well-compensated, but the reality isn't Gordon Gecko or Wolf of Wall Street movie, but when things tighten-up, there are cuts just like any other industry:
Wall Street Has Been Quietly Cutting 20,000 Jobs In 2023
U.S. banks quietly cut 20,000 employees this year with more job losses to come. The layoffs on Wall Street are a worrisome sign of the continuing broader economic challenges facing the U.S.Complete List of Investment Banking Layoffs (2023) - Buyside Hustle
It’s a bloodbath out there. There is no question about it. Revenues at investment banks are down 50%+ year over year as rising interest rates and slowing economic conditions have put a complete pause on most M&A activity around the world. It’s crazy how an industry can go from having an insanely...Wall Street banks shed jobs to ease cost pressures
Banking heavyweights including Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley have announced a string of layoffs this year as part of a cost-cutting spree to better position themselves for a murky economic climate.
It doesn't matter really. Just like radio or TV, investment banking or stock picking is a limited industry in scope. It not like if you get RIF'ed you will find something just down the street. His comment that investment bankers or Wall Street analysts are somehow immune to cuts just isn't reality.