Further Wage Cuts at the Phoenix

Three months after the Phoenix Media/Communications Group announced a handful of layoffs and pay cuts of two to 10 percent (with heftier reductions for some top-tier managers), there are more reductions on the way.

Brad Mindich, chairman of the company, sent an email to employees today with word of 10 percent cuts over the next three months for all salaried employees. That amounts to a 2.7 percent pay reduction on an annualized basis.

On the flipside, the company - which operates the Providence Phoenix, the Boston Phoenix, and the Portland Phoenix, among other ventures - will give employees six extra days off. That includes every other Friday for the remainder of the summer. Those whose last names start with the letters A-I will get one batch of Fridays off, those whose last names start with the letters J-Z will get another.

No small shakes, these wage cuts. But at least we've still got jobs.

I say that as a man not so far removed from a layoff. I was a ProJo scribe for about a year-and-a-half before the paper laid me off last fall. And now, I write all too frequently of job cuts at the ProJo, at local TV stations, local radio. The drumbeat comes with depressing regularity.

But the cuts have come with a dose of humanity here - pay cuts instead of mass layoffs, managers taking the biggest reductions. And for that, I am thankful.