L.A.Times, Writers to Court Over Retirement Fund Meltdown

[Omaha Steve]

http://www.thewrap.com/ind-column/la-times-employees-lawsuit-rolls-12975

By Steven Mikulan
Published: March 17, 2010

As if plunging circulation, vanishing ad revenues and job losses weren't tormenting the Los Angeles Times enough, an employee lawsuit that opens in Chicago on Thursday accuses Tribune Co. chairman Sam Zell and others of forcing thousands of newspaper workers' retirement accounts into a financially ruinous company-stock plan.

Lawyers representing six L.A. Times current and former writers will face off against attorneys defending Zell and the executive team who together created an Employee Stock Ownership Plan that allegedly saddled employees with nearly $13 billion in Zell-acquired debt.

It does this even while posing as the employees’ chief source of retirement income.



Tribune Company -- the owner of the Chicago Tribune, the L.A. Times and a constellation of other print and electronic media outlets (and, until recently, the Chicago Cubs baseball team) -- was originally included as a defendant but was dropped once the corporation filed for bankruptcy.

The plaintiffs include former staffers Dan Neil, Henry Weinstein, Corie Brown, Walter Roche Jr., Myron Levin and Julie Makinen.

At the heart of the federal suit lies a stock ownership plan that Zell, a Chicago real-estate tycoon, first proposed in early 2007, prior to his buyout of the company, and which was accepted by Tribune that April.

FULL story at link.