Has it really come to this? “Tricking” your staff into pay cuts?

Via Sharon Waxman at The Wrap:

The New York Times, my former mother-ship, is offering to “retrain” its reporters and turn them into new media whiz-kids. Only one problem with that.

Nobody wants to do it.

….

At first, reporters reacted to the memo with enthusiasm, from what I hear from the inside of the newsroom. After all, many of even the most veteran journalists want to equip themselves with the skills to survive the epochal changes hitting newsprint. Many of them want to adapt, and transform themselves.

But at what cost? It turns out that Edgerley wasn’t being candid about the consequences of such retraining.

A memo from the newspaper guild to reporters followed Edgerley’s, and warned them of the invisible downside to their voluntary “retraining”: they would have to leave the paper and be rehired at a lower salary. They would thus lose their seniority at the company, have to start earning vacation like new employees and be subject to the lesser protection offered web writers under the rules of the newspaper guild.

In fact, the gambit seems like a not-very-transparent attempt to cut reporters’ salaries, strip them of benefits and make their seniority disappear.

As much as I’m a proponent of journalists taking every opportunity to retrain themselves, I can’t blame anyone for not signing up for this BS. If nothing else, the deceitful nature of this offer is so disrespectful that even if I were willing to take a pay cut in exchange for retraining, I would be seriously tempted to decline this just based on principle. It would also probably make me start looking for another job instead of continuing to work for an employer that holds its employees in such low regard. I’ve always said that loyalty is earned, not freely given. Don’t ask me to run through a wall for you while you are stabbing me in the back.

If you want to tell your employees, “Retrain or else”, fine. If you want to tell them, “Take a pay cut or else,” fine. But have the decency to be up front about it. Don’t dangle a turd in front of them and tell them it’s a carrot.