Ricketts shuts down DNAinfo, Gothamist after union vote

[GURPS]

Ricketts, who was CEO of DNAinfo and had bought Gothamist earlier this year, penned a letter to readers to explain his decision, noting “DNAinfo is, at the end of the day, a business, and businesses need to be economically successful if they are to endure.”

Local outlets also owned by Ricketts in Los Angeles, Chicago, and Washington, D.C., including DCist, will also close its doors along with the New York papers, leaving nearly 115 journalists without jobs, just one week after they voted to unionize.

Despite efforts to make the business more profitable, he said they haven’t “been sufficient to support the tremendous effort and expense needed to produce the type of journalism on which the company was founded.”

Billionaire CEO Joe Ricketts shuts down DNAinfo, Gothamist after union vote





Enjoy That UNION Card in the unemployment line




These Media Employees Voted To Unionize. One Week Later, They Found Out What A Rotten Decision That Was.


Last spring, after DNAinfo and Gothamist New York newsrooms made noises about unionizing, Ricketts warned, “As long as it’s my money that’s paying for everything, I intend to be the one making the decisions about the direction of the business.” By September Ricketts wrote on his blog a piece titled “Why I’m Against Unions At Businesses I Create.” He asserted, “ … unions promote a corrosive us-against-them dynamic that destroys the esprit de corps businesses need to succeed.”

 

[This_person]

It's too bad it has to come to something like this, but I fully understand the point.

I've worked as a union employee, and I hated that I could not negotiate my own contract. I did not need and would never use some of the benefits, but they paid for benefits I could not have. If we could have negotiated as individuals, I would have been far better off. I suspect the company would have, too. I had to (because I did not have the right to work without the union) pay someone who was not in the company to negotiate for me. It made no sense.

You have the right to unionize, and Ricketts has the right not to maintain a company with union workers. Ain't freedom grand!?

 

[Gilligan]

I can only applaud loudly in this case. Hope those reporters can use those union cards in the grocery store checkout.

 

[GURPS]

You have the right to unionize, and Ricketts has the right not to maintain a company with union workers. Ain't freedom grand!?

I am sure Sappy will be along demanding this heartless Billionaire be forced to reopen these business and continue to pay these UNION Employees like some Gov. Welfare Program

that Ricketts is just a greedy heartless republican

 

[This_person]

I am sure Sappy will be along demanding this heartless Billionaire be forced to reopen these business and continue to pay these UNION Employees like some Gov. Welfare Program

that Ricketts is just a greedy heartless republican

That's because Sap doesn't get what freedom means. He has openly and plainly stated he would rather live like a domesticated animal, with someone watching out for his best interests, than as a free man with all of the joys and risks that entails. I am not against unions per se, but I am equally not against closing up shop if you don't want to negotiate with a union instead of your employees.

As a kid, I recall a company nearby going on strike. It was a Sun Electric facility. They hired a contractor to come in and put up security fencing, set up a shop in town to take applications, and hired a whole new staff (this was during Carter, there was not a shortage of skilled laborers in the area without jobs). The union tried the whole "SCAB" deal, but couldn't afford to keep it up for too long with their members not employed and the other people employed.

 

[GURPS]

I am not against unions per se ....

UNIONS are an archaic anachronism whois time has passed

 

[This_person]

UNIONS are an archaic anachronism whois time has passed

No argument from me, but.....

the truth of what you are saying is due in large part to government intrusion into the private conduct of business owners and their employees. The regulations are what cause the unions to be an anachronism. I am against this level of governmental intrusion. Secondly, people have a right to be stupid, and unionizing in the 21st century is pretty stupid.

 

[GURPS]

Communist NY Mayor De Blasio: Ricketts 'A Coward' For Shutting Down Unprofitable Gothamist. Has De Blasio Ever Heard Of Economics?


On Friday, communist New York Mayor Bill De Blasio attacked DNAinfo and Gothamist owner Joe Ricketts for shutting down the outlets a week after employees decided it would be wise to unionize despite a complete lack of profit at the institutions. De Blasio tweeted:

Joe Ricketts is a coward. He wouldn't last a minute under the intrepid scrutiny of the reporters he employed. What a loss for our city. https://t.co/IH0NH3JM0Z

— Bill de Blasio (@NYCMayor) November 3, 2017​

This is insipid. The Leftist notion that “bravery” has something to do with profitability is utterly inane. Profitability springs from running a business that generates enough voluntary transactions to create a revenue stream, and spending less on that business than the revenue stream. Continuing to blow through credit in order to prop up a weak revenue stream isn’t brave, it’s counterproductive. And it’s even more counterproductive for employees, knowing that revenue is down, to attempt to raise the cost of running the business through unionization.

But De Blasio, like many on the Left, believes that basic economics should reflect an arbitrary moral code. That’s why Joe Biden has said that paying more taxes is somehow more patriotic; it’s why the Left went nuts when businesses began laying people off due to additional Obamacare costs; it’s why Democrats never seem to understand why businesses use part-time labor after minimum wage regulations hit the books. All of that is immoral and uncaring.

 

[black dog]

As a Skilled Trade Union man for over 20 years I witnessed other members do things to company and customer property that was criminal, I watched as members that were drunks and drug addicts get there jobs back six months after they were fired with back pay. I watched the Auto workers in Indiana keep demanding more and more from GM and there off branches, like Delco, Fisher, Guide and so on until they closed up and moved away.
Employees never should be able to run the asylum. Never Ever should employee's tell a owner of a company what he has to pay for..

 

[Kyle]

It's in unions nature to change the relationship between workers and companies from symbiotic to parasitic.