Ebony and Jet magazines have been laying off their remaining editorial staff en masse after failing to make payroll last month — the latest in a long line of slights suffered by workers at the hands of the company’s private-equity owners.
Axed employees say they are “rubbing pennies together” to make ends meet. One ex-staffer even claims her company-sponsored retirement account may have been shortchanged.
Insiders said the problems started in late May when private equity firm Clear View Group out of Austin, Texas — which purchased the prominent African American publications three years ago from Johnson Publishing — told staffers in Chicago that they would be suspending the print edition of 74-year-old Ebony on May 24.
At least seven staffers were laid off, sources said.
Jet, a once-popular digest-size magazine, was saved because it went all-digital several years earlier, when it was still owned by Johnson Publishing.
The company held a town hall meeting a few days later, on Tuesday, May 28, and assured remaining digital staffers that they were safe, sources said.
But that was followed by a jarring memo on May 30 warning staffers about problems making payroll.
“As a result of a delay in receiving expected capital this week, there will be a delay in payroll this pay period on 5/31/19,” said the memo, a copy of which was obtained by Media Ink.
“We are working diligently with our capital source to get the payroll processed as soon as possible next week,” the firm said.
But that never happened.
The digital workers, who were mainly based in New York, then refused to work until they were paid, said Joshua David, who was the company’s director of social media based in LA before he was suddenly axed on June 7, along with three digital writers, one videographer, two ad staffers and chief content officer Sunny Singh.
Singh did not return a call for comment.
“Your position is being terminated,” David was told in an email. “We don’t know when we will be able to pay you your expenses and wages, but will send you a break down of the money we owe you.”
“I worked my a– for that company,” said David, who says he is owed as much as $10,000. “It’s heartbreaking to see what is happening. I’ve been rubbing pennies together when I go on interviews.”
A second staffer who asked not to be named said she has noticed that 401(k) contributions the company deducted from her paycheck over 11 pay periods have not yet been added to her account. She even called the account’s broker, Trans America, to ask what happened and was told no money has been forwarded for those biweekly pay periods.
David said he has not been affected by the problem but has heard from other employees who have.
“We don’t comment on personnel matters,” said Michael Gibson, head of Clear View Group, which owns the publications through an entity called Ebony Media Operations. He didn’t return a request for comment about the 401(k) claims.
It’s the latest in a long line of employee grievances stretching back to at least November 2018, when the company informed staffers that it would be suspending dental, vision and disability coverage and would only revisit the idea of reinstating the benefits during the next open enrollment period in June.
The company said employees would be reimbursed for payments made in August and September, suggesting that money withdrawn from paychecks had not been forwarded to the health care provider.
Then on Jan. 3, the company said it was canceling all other medical benefits. “Effective immediately Ebony Media Operations will no longer offer health benefits, including HSA plans,” said a memo obtained by Media Ink.
In an unrelated development, business is not much better for the Johnson family that founded Ebony and Jet and sold them to Clear View in 2016. That company declared Chapter 7 bankruptcy on April 9 and was preparing a court-supervised auction of its assets.
After exiting the magazine business, the company branched into a cosmetics line it retained from Linda Johnson Rice, the daughter of John Johnson, who started Ebony in 1945.
Johnson Publishing also retained the photo archives that included photos of entertainers, civil rights leaders and prominent African American businessmen and -women. The archive also boasts one of the most dramatic photos of the civil rights era: the badly disfigured body of 14-year-old Emmett Till laid out in a coffin.
The Chicago native was accused of offending a white woman during a trip to Mississippi, which led to barbed wire being tied around his neck before he was thrown naked into a river with a 75-pound weight tied to him.
The photo by David Jackson appeared first in Jet in 1955 and became a searing reminder of racism in the Deep South at the time.
The Johnson Publishing bankruptcy listed assets of between $10 million and $50 million.