15 Sun-Times Staffers Accept Voluntary Buyouts
By Lisa White in News on Feb 28, 2015 7:00PM
After news broke earlier this month that the Chicago Sun-Times would likely be axing nearly a quarter of their newsroom staff, offering up voluntary buyout agreements to all 68 newsroom employees, we've been waiting to find out the individuals leaving the paper. Yesterday Robert Feder was able to report the names of the 15 staff members who accepted their voluntary buyouts from Wrapports.
All 15 employees are represented by the Chicago Newspaper Guild and includes Art Golab, who chairs the Sun-Times division of the Guild. The Guild formally announced yesterday the buyouts were approved and all 15 staff members would be gone from the newsroom by Monday. Per the agreement negotiated, those who accepted the buyout were offered up to 20 weeks of severance pay. Feder points out that it is still unknown if the buyouts were sufficient enough to avoid layoffs at the company.
Another note of interest is the four photographers who were hired back in 2013 after the paper eliminated its photography department accepted their buyouts. So much for a happy ending. Earlier this month, the Sun-Times axed their video team as well.
Here are the 15 employees who accepted the buyouts. We wish them well and will miss their contributions to the Sun-Times.
- Teresa Budasi digital editor
- Rich Chapman photographer
- Adrienne Gibbs reporter
- Art Golab reporter
- Seth Gruen sports reporter
- Larry Hamel assistant sports editor
- Brian Jackson photographer
- Francine Knowles reporter
- Jessica Koscielniak photographer
- Al Podgorski photographer
- Lori Rackl TV critic
- Michael Schmidt photographer
- Brian Slodysko reporter
- Mike Thomas reporter
- Monifa Thomas reporter