Archive for March, 2009

The company that owns the Chicago Sun-Times and 58 other newspapers and online sites said Tuesday it had filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy.

The Sun-Times Media Group, Inc. said it would continue to operate its newspapers and Web sites as usual while it improves its cost structure and stabilizes operations.

Tuesday’s announcement comes amid a raft of newspaper closings and cuts that has seen the end of The Rocky Mountain News in Denver, Colorado; The Seattle Post-Intelligencer, and The Christian Science Monitor. (CNN)

Angry French workers facing layoffs at a Caterpillar factory detained four of their bosses Tuesday at the U.S. manufacturer’s plant in the Alps and refused to let them leave the premises, union representatives said.

It is the third time in several weeks that French workers have seized their bosses to protest job losses as a result of the global economic crisis. (Business Week)

Sun Microsystems (JAVA) is giving layoff notifications this week to 1,500 additional employees, a spokesman for the company confirmed this afternoon.

The 1,500 job cuts are part of the 5,000-6,000 layoffs the company announced in November 2008. Sun issued 1,300 layoff notices in connection with the program in January.

The spokesman said the reductions this week affect all levels of the company, and include cuts both in the U.S. and overseas. (Barrons)

California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger said a make-shift tent city for the homeless that sprang up in the capital city of Sacramento will be shut down and its residents allowed to stay at the state fairgrounds.

Schwarzenegger said he ordered the state facility known as Cal-Expo to be used for three months to serve the 125 tent city residents, some of them displaced by the economic recession. The encampment may be shut down within a month, said Sacramento Mayor Kevin Johnson. The move comes after the Sacramento City Council last night agreed to spend $880,000 to expand homeless programs. (Bloomberg)