Meetings and apologies at DN, but....

Tonight on The Paper Trail, the blog by Daily News reporter and union steward Brent Hopkins:

In the morning and again in the afternoon, Kerry [Cavanaugh] and I met with Jim Janiga from HR. In the morning, Ron [Kaye] joined us, in the afternoon, Vicki DiPaolo also represented the guild. Janiga seemed open and even contrite-- he apologized for not coming to us sooner and acknowledged that communication on the company's end had been poor. He blamed the sputtering economy for the company's woes and said it had to eliminate nearly $1 million from the budget to stem the money losses.

He said he'd ask the publisher to meet with the newsroom soon and more regularly and we stressed the need for open communication. If this company's going to get out of this horrible situation, it's going to need all the good ideas it can get its hands on. Hopefully, he'll come around soon and share the plan going forward and be receptive to new ideas.

Janiga said this would be the last cuts for the meantime and that the company would not freeze jobs going forward. If people quit following the layoffs, the laidoff employees will be the first offered their jobs back.

Staffers learn tomorrow which 22 of them are leaving. Cavanaugh is a reporter, Kaye is the paper's editor.