Cold wind blows
Meredith ‘freezes out’ fired workers
THEREwasa definite cold front moving into the New York area on Wednesday — straight outta Des Moines.
Some employees of Meredith — who normally work in the publisher’s Manhattan offices but weretoiling at home during a nor’easter that dumped 12 inches of snow on the metro area — were forced in the middle of the storm to come to the office to clean out their desks, sources tell MediaInk.
The workers, who were among the 200 former staffers from Time Inc. getting pink-slipped, had to schlep into the city just to gather up their personal belongings.
“Basically, they told us nothing would work after 8 p.m. [Wednesday],” said one source. “Theywantedit done yesterday. Done. Done. Done.”
For those who made it to the office, the clean-out was easier — although none the less melancholy.
Amongthosehandedwalking papers were Senior Vice President Edouard Portelette, whowasheading The Foundry, the new digital hubthatTimeInc. hadbuilt in Sunset Park, Brooklyn, to houseabout150peopleworking on native advertising and digital products.
Chris Hercik, the chief creative officer of The Foundry, was spared, and Meredithsaidthatmostofthe workers from the 2-year-old state-of-the-art building will just be moving across the river to Manhattan into 225 Liberty St. — the onetime headquarters of TimeInc.
Other departments were not so fortunate.
“Finance, accounting, humanresourcesandlegalwere all decimated with layoffs,” said one source.
Aside from Portelette, other SVPs laid off included Jaison Blair, Kurt Rao, Russ Charlton and Judith Hammerman.
Kevin Martinez, a group publisher over InStyle and StyleWatch, is also out.
Meredith is said to be holding the cuts to under 250 so that it does not have to file socalled WARN notices with NewYorkstate, sources said.
Under terms of WARNnotices — which are needed for layoffs of more than 250 persons — employees have to be given 90 days advance notice that their jobs are being g phased out.
But while the total Meredith layoffs amount to more than 250, the company is classifying them as individual events and, therefore, not WARN-worthy.
The company said that up to 1,000 more people will be laid off in the months ahead. The1,800-person downsizing amounts to 26 percent of the 7,000-personworkforceat Time when it was absorbed into Meredith in a $2.8 billion takeover on Jan. 31. The figure includes the 600 workers in Tampa who were told that the Time Customer Service Center was being shut downby the newowner. Close to 1,000 workers wereloppedofftheemployee head count in Britain this week — but they still have jobs at TimeInc. UK, whichis nowownedbytheprivateequity firm Epiris. TheLondonbased firm paid about $167 million for the British titles.
Of the four titles officially on the block — Time, Sports Illustrated, Fortune and Money— acompanyspokesmansaid,“Ourgoalistocomplete the process in the next 60 to 120 days, provided we are comfortable with the valuations.”