The Fort Worth (Texas) Weekly, in a story about the Knight Ridder-owned Fort Worth Star-Telegram, points out that KR’s “key executives” will receive payments equal to three times their annual salary and bonuses plus three years’ worth of life and health insurance if the company is sold and they lose their jobs. The golden parachutes were revealed in a report KR filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. “The document makes no such provision for most of Knight Ridder’s 18,000 employees, whose jobs could be on the line if a new owner decides to squeeze more profits from its fleet of papers with layoffs,” says the article by Dan Malone. Malone points out that chief executive Tony Ridder (pictured) took home $4.2 million last year. The thrust of the story was about how the KR daily threw a lavish 100th anniversary party and didn’t invite its rank-and-file employees. “Birthday cakes and golden parachutes,’’ one employee grumped in a note to Fort Worth Weekly. “On its 100th anniversary, the [Star-Telegram’s] message to employees was: Let them eat (cup) cakes.”
KR execs to get cushy severance packages
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