Contractor ,its my understanding that you should be given 30 days rembirshment ,due to you via the contract,unless the circ manager finds that you were in breach.You have not been told anything ,and I can speak on behalf of many cites,due to the bs changining daily being feed to us by the so-called management that they are canning at the end of the month anyway.Contractor I would line something up asap.You maybe if you are lucky gonna last till mid Feb. or early March....

This just gets me so mad. Cox has destroyed a perfectly good product and company. It took YEARS to build it up like it was, which required hard work by alot of dedicated people on the local level. Didnt take them long to tear it all down. The way I understand it, Interco is joint owned by Cox and Dominion. Wonder if there will be another lawsuit over that? FYI, we got our books out of the Dallas plant.

So are you interco guys getting severance?

Intercoprint winston-salem nc layed off 19 including myself due to cox crippling interco. What the h... are these people thinking in this time. We were doing more work than we've ever done until the split of trader pub. sad very sad. Everyone needs to network to help each other.

I worked for InterCo in Phx. up until yesterday. We were told that 21 Auto Trader titles were being eliminated. 20 employees and myself were laid off. The Dallas plant is supposed to be laying off 20-25 by the end of the month. There is supposed to be layoffs throughout all the remaining plants. The Chicago plat was shut down completely.

I do not know why they would change automart around, only to shut it down soon after. I guess the same reason not more than a month ago we had several people from home office down getting everyone ready to go "virtual" and work from home, even ordered 2 pallets of these printer/scanners/fax for everyone, then to shut the whole thing down right after. Makes no sense. As for the print reps going to atc, and needing to wake up, Im sure all of them that have gone there have woke up and know what is in store for them. I dont know if they told all of them or not, but our 2 reps here to are going over there would not have got a severance because they were being offered another job. AND, these 2 reps were also told that it was only for 60 days, then after that, they would see if they got to stay or not. They know good and well after 60 days they will be gone.

Every cat/am employee that is with autotrader.com what do you think they are going to do with you when you have turned over as much print revenue as you can? What do you think they are telling the .com reps as you are going into their accounts, do not worry these guys are on a transistion team and all accounts will be passed onto you. Why cant they say what will happen after 90 days? Because then you wouldn't help grow their buisness. WAKE UP PEOPLE

That "Launching a New Identity" video has got to be the most rediculous thing I have ever seen! What a joke for a company like Cox--with cable interests even--to have such a poorly done "ad" It's no wonder things went south!

This was posted on You Tube in November...

Login to view embedded media View: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TCQ8dZ6n6hY


Auto Mart - launching a new identity. Why would these people spend so much money revising and launching a new look when they knew they were going to close it all down 3 months later? Clueless leaders?

For those who choose to stay with Cox, you only prolong your termination, you are a dead employee walking. This is Cox we are dealing with. Save yourself and find another job now or you will be "stunned" when you too are shown the door.

Hey "drank some koolaid", set up an emergency account for yourself now, you know down deep they're going to throw you under the bus as soon as they drain you of your contacts/relationships. Get ready because as time goes on they will change up your commish plan/precentage as time wears on.

Does anyone know what it cost to print Auto Mart?? In a market with 30,000 magazines what did those magazines cost to produce and deliver??

interco Print is having big meeting dose anyone know how today went, I'm sure there were layoffs. I hear Fri there will be more.

Yes, Interco is getting ready to have the same meeting. All the production department is being let go. There will be no need for them anymore since there will be no dealer ads, display or otherwise. All the private party ads will flow in right out of Advisor so there is no production work to do. Im sure they will keep some of the illegals around to print the books, well at least until feb when the evaluate the situation.

went out on some sales calls today with the atc rep, and sold an upgrade to a very good print customer of mine. The rep says to me, wow you just made 200% commission on this sale, and I said to him, I thought that was on new business only? So, I called my manager and asked him and he said "congratulations! you just made 4400 bucks already this month" again, I said I thought that was only on new business and he says "Oh yeah, you're right, you each get 12 1/2 percent" Woopee!! that combined with that huge salary and I can buy a lottery ticket.

I think that they have dumped the text to take over the dot com market very quickly. In my opinion the only reason for doing this would be to sell the dot com while it is at its peak. Like it or not people are shopping the internet for everything, and a website would have to sell for more than a print company. With such a low overhead "in comparison to text" and pretty much forcing dealers to go to the site it is a great strategy. I personally hate it because about 60% of our business originates from the text ads. At any rate it is a shame that they are putting together such a weak severance package for the loyal employees. Our rep may not have gotten everything right all of the time, but it was not due to a lack of effort. He truly cared about his job, and was a great help when needed. This is a sad day.

I hear Interco Print is having big meeting. Anyone Heard of any Interco Print moves?

Any rep or manager in a market wanting to continue in this still great industry can. We are in this business as an independent and can offer design, customer service, print, distribution and a major national web feed for any territory in the US. This is your chance to have YOUR own book, we don't want to own it but can provide all the infrastructure for you to own your own at a cost per page you can make a fantastic living on. Email me if your interested and I can send you samples overnight of printed samples and we can more on the phone if you have questions. [email protected]

Longtime employee, thank you for the insight. It is much as I expected, but in these days, I would not expect 30 days from a company in such trouble. If they can treat their inside employees this way, I would not be surprised at all if they just cut us loose, when the time comes. Who out here, as drivers and delivery people, could afford to sue Cox? And they know it. Coming from a corporate background, I can say that Cox is not the only company to treat its people so badly.

The thing that bothers me is that we have received NO word about anything! I've had to do my own web research to find out what is going on. Even my emails to request changes to my accounts have gone unanswered. I am already invisible. I just know that, in my 25-stop route, I am only delivering books to maybe 5 stops now.

contractor, I have done contracting for newspapers for years, and also when my management position in Private Party was eliminated last year and I was moved into circulation, I can relate to what you are going thru. I can tell for in my opinion seeing what is going on from the inside, I dont see the books lasting more than a month or 2. I know for example, our lease is up at our location end of February and I cant see them paying to lease a new place. For whatever that is worth. As to your question of notice, our contracts state that either party has to give 30 days notice before terminating the contract. Thats not to say that contractors (drivers) did not quit on us all the time with no notice, but if Cox just dumps you without giving you 30 days, you have grounds to sue them. I guess the only loophole there is if your contract is coming up for renewal anyway, say, in a week or 2, then they could just not renew it and you would be SOL.

I have wondered what's going on. Being on the distribution side for the print mags, I have seen decline, decline, decline in numbers and editions. I wonder when WE will get the news that our jobs are no longer there? ... and as an independent contractor, I have no recourse for unemployment or any other safety net, since my state does not recognize me as an employee. Does anyone know if CAT has to give us worker bees any notice?

I knew of the "re-assignment" of some employees to ATC, hearing through the grapevine that the chosen ones had to actually re-apply for their own jobs.

Employee, how right you are. That's perhaps the most frustrating thing with all of this. With all the technology around, ie: cell phones, text msgs, etc., they chose to announce to over 4,000 hard-woking and very loyal employees that they would soon be out of a job!-Via email in the middle of the day, when reps are out on the road with no immediate access to a computer to read the announcement. While some companies would not even offer severance pkgs. and I'm thankful that I will receive one. However, I believe that a company of this size could have AND should have conducted themselves with a bit more class and shown more respect to those who were told their jobs are now gone. After all, this was supposed to be "The Year of The Rep". Everybody remember that one? Best of luck to those who are staying because it sure sounds like you'll need it, especially in this economy. Best of luck to those who were caught totally off guard on Jan. 5 with your job hunting, we will need it too!!

Hello Fellow soon to be ex employees, the truth of the matter is we were told thru a mass email, that is what hurts, we worked in the heat, snow, rain, sick, you name it and we get told in an email. They have webinars, meetings every month for the vp's and the rd's, wine and dine them, and the people out there really giving there all for the most part find out like we are nothing. Or were we??

FYI, I was talking to the 2 reps here who "got" to move to ATC, they said it was for 60 days, then the company would evaluate if they were going to stay or not. These 2 reps are supposed to be moving as much revenue as they can from print to atc. You know what will happen in 60 days to those guys of course. They were making big bucks at our office, the atc job pays QUITE a bit less I have been told.

Hey Dan,

The Weather Channel was founded by John Coleman in May 1982, but he went to Frank Batten at Landmark with it, (not to COX) and Landmark took it, squeezed Frank out after about a year and developed it further and made it what it was until they recently sold it to NBC and the private equity firms Bain Capital and Blackstone Group.
As part of the TPC partnership, Landmark certainly helped make the company what it was before the split, and I don't think I can say enough good things about Conrad Hall. Without his incredible leadership over the last 18+ years, we would have nothing to be complaining about right now, because there would be nothing but little groups of publications here and there and a whole bunch of competitors. Without COX as a partner, we would have never had a unified brand such as AutoTrader, since they had bought the original publications from the founder in Florida.
It is unfortunate about what has happened and I sense alot of anger and dissappointment in these threads. It's OK to let it out and get it out of your system, but then take stock of your opportunities and move on.
Nobody likes having their cheese moved, and certainly this feels like the cheese was stolen, gobbled up and never to return, but it is what it is. Best wishes to my fellow comrades, I am out there looking just like you are.

What line of work are you in now?? I can't imagine life without deadlines and working for people who appreciate your hard work and dedication!!! Been thinking of a career move - any insight would be appreciated.