Plain Dealer management people now face the same fate as union editorial staff and reporters – job loses – despite a long-standing promise called the “Newhouse Pledge” of no layoffs.

According to a piece in Poynter web site by Mark Holan the Pledge will go out of business on Feb. 5, 2010.

Nolan reported, “The so-called ‘Newhouse Pledge,’ named after the family that founded and controls the New York-based media company, guaranteed that in most cases, employees would never be laid off. The pledge, which according to a recently filed lawsuit has been in place for at least 25 years, applied to all full-time, non-union employees. Newhouse has a reputation of being an anti-union company, and some believe the pledge was intended partly to discourage employees from organizing.”

Holan adds, “But like hot type and afternoon editions, the pledge has become a relic.”

The PD has had significant job lost in its editorial staff, some 40 percent of the editorial staff, according to some reports.

Many notice that the Plain Dealer has reduced its size and content in recent times.

A publisher at the Newhouse’s Mobile Press-Register has decided to use the pledge as a means to sue Newhouse for his dismissal.

“(Howard) Bronson wants a jury to award damages for breaking the pledge and forcing him into retirement,” Holan writes.

This puts another level of PD editorial staffing in jeopardy by early next year.

A Newhouse family member quoted saying that “the pledge does not apply ‘to the kind of transitional moment in the newspaper industry that is basically struggling to survive.’”

The Newhouse Pledge, therefore, wasn’t really a pledge.

The full story is available here: http://www.poynter.org/column.asp?id=101&aid=170645