Erie Times-News masthead

In the beginning, the newspaper that would become the Erie Times-News was started by nine printers alienated by their old newspapers management.

Today, the newspaper announced that there would be no pressman employed at 12th and Sass, meaning 40 employees to be terminated. Citing aging presses and costs involved with improving them, the Times Publishing Co. said they will outsource the printing and packaging of the daily. From the GoErie.com post:

Even though it is exiting the printing and packaging business, the company will continue to operate the Erie Times-News as a family-owned daily newspaper.

“This was a very difficult decision but one that we believe is in the best long-term interests of the company and the community,” said Rosanne Cheeseman, president and publisher.

“Our major concern is the age of our printing and packaging equipment and the millions of dollars it would take to maintain or replace this equipment. Although we have printed our own newspaper for nearly 90 years, with today’s technologies we have decided to purchase printing and packaging services elsewhere. The world of communication is changing, and more than 50 newspapers across the country have closed printing plants just since the beginning of 2009.”

The presses currently used to produce the Erie Times-News are 41 years old.

WJET/WFXP and WICU/WSEE quoted Communication Workers of America union spokesman Dan Wasser:

I think it’s not only a slap in the face to the employees, but also to the community where they get their revenue from. They predominantly state on their newspaper, that they’ve been serving the Erie community area since 1888, and after all these years, they’ve decided to outsource this work, instead of keeping the work in Erie, PA.

It was reported that Erie Police were called to the plant upon the announcement of the layoffs, which came on the first day of negotiations of a new collective bargaining agreement between the CWA and the paper.