This is the best part of the CARES Act you never heard about.
to avoid layoffs at the paper, which like other media outlets has been walloped financially by the collapse of advertising during the coronavirus crisis. The agreement hinged on a poorly publicized, little used, and potentially powerful program that exists in California and many other states: work sharing.
Under the plan, which state regulators still need to bless, staffers will have their schedule cut back to four days a week and accept a 20 percent pay cut until August. But as a result, they will become eligible to collect some of their state unemployment benefits, as well the $600-a-week federal unemployment booster that Congress created as part of the CARES Act, the economic relief bill it passed in March.
If the plan is approved, the Los Angeles Times will save a good deal of money—the equivalent of furloughing one fifth of its guild staff. But because they will be collecting unemployment benefits while working, few Times journalists will actually have to sacrifice any income. In fact, many, if not most, of them stand to get a temporary raise.
It’s a tantalizing bargain, a rare potential win-win for a struggling company and its staff at a moment of economic catastrophe. You might assume, then, that many businesses would be rushing to take advantage of the same opportunity, especially given that other options, such as the ever-troubled Paycheck Protection Program, haven’t been universally helpful. But so far, work sharing agreements have been a relative rarity during this crisis. According to the U.S.
Why aren’t more businesses rushing to embrace work sharing? I can offer a bit of first-hand insight there. For the past few weeks, I’ve been working with Slate’s management on behalf of its editorial union to explore the possibility of setting up our own work-sharing program, and collaborated a bit with the Los Angeles Times’ guild leaders as we each tried to navigate the regulatory issues in different states.
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