France
Le Monde staff strikes over job cutsPosted Jul 1 2008
On May 6, presses stopped for the third time since April at the French daily Le Monde newspaper.
In a staff meeting April 4, management proposed 129 job cuts, mostly in the newsroom, to curtail financial losses. The newspaper stopped the presses for the April 15 and April 18 issues. The Web site was also not updated.
Unions have deemed the planned cuts unacceptable. Groupe Le Monde journalists have voted to negotiate a new plan with management to hold onto media assets sold under the plan.
Losses for 2007 were reported at 20 million euros, adding to a total debt of 150 million euros, according to Reuters.
Daily circulation of the afternoon paper was estimated at 310,000 in 2007, higher than in 2006, but still short of generating profit.
Le Monde hopes to get back in the black in 2010. The plan includes voluntary redundancy and forced layoffs, Chief Executive Eric Fottorino wrote in a public statement on the newspaper’s Web site.