In the wake of Pioneer Press layoffs today — which took out 7 percent of the newsroom — the paper's journalists are asking the baffling question: why wouldn't ownership let them take concessions to preserve headcount?

Just to close the circle on today's news, here's the rather rueful memo the PiPress Newspaper Guild leadership sent to its members this afternoon, discussing ownership's choice of "an ax instead of a scalpel":

June 30, 2009

Today, the company laid off 11 of our co-workers — nine in the newsroom, one in ad production and one in advertising sales.

Those laid off are: Andrew Pritchard, Jennifer Westpfahl, Emily King, Trisha Collopy, Sara Connolly, Dana Albrecht, Amanda Willis, Phillip Miller and Brandi Thomas from the newsroom; Andrew Schaefer from ad production; and Ellen Aldajuste from advertising sales.

This didn't have to happen. Today, we Guild members were prepared to vote on talking to the company about contract concessions. Instead, late last week, Guild members — including Guild leaders — were blindsided by the company's withdrawal of its request for concessions.

Starting with the initial meeting with Guild leaders, May 20, the company never officially stated a deadline or a real sense of urgency about accomplishing its cost-saving goals by July 1, the start of the new budget year. The only mention of July 1 as a possible deadline was made by Editor Thom Fladung during a newsroom meeting May 20.

At the next meeting with Guild leaders, June 11, the company cut its concessionary request in half to $1.1 million and still did not spell out a specific deadline. Guild leaders told the company we were scheduling a membership meeting June 30 to vote on whether to start bargaining, and again the company did not communicate a sense of urgency.

Clearly, we know how to cooperate — especially during these tough economic times. When the company came to the Guild in February saying it needed cost savings, Guild members voted within 48 hours to go along with the company's furlough request, and 80 percent of the furloughs were taken by the end of March. That Guild effort saved the company $280,000.

With today's layoffs and other workforce reductions that occurred since January, the company has saved about $2.3 million at our expense.

Using average figures, Guild leaders estimate today's layoffs will save the company about $800,000. (Layoffs will cost the company about $100,000 in severance pay.)

We Guild leaders asked the company what else we could have done to avoid today's layoffs, and we were told nothing would have made a difference. We are disappointed and frustrated that the company used an ax instead of a scalpel to achieve cost savings and completely cut Guild members out of participating in a solution that would have been less painful.