Linda S. Martinez (Quinton Martinez/Borderzine.com)
EL PASO — She can see the writing on the wall even if she has to squint to see it in the dim early morning light she is accustomed to working in.
Fifty-year-old Linda S. Martinez is a newspaper carrier for the El Paso Times and is far from the 1950’s stereotype of a 12-year-old boy on his bicycle making extra money for baseball cards. She needs the money she has been earning for nearly 20 years on this job to live on and fears that with newspapers closing left and right her job could be ending and a very difficult search for new employment could be starting.
A national epidemic is killing newspapers. In the last several months newspapers in Denver, San Francisco, Seattle and Boston have either closed, or have been warned of impending doom. Gannett, the largest publisher in the United States, reported that net income fell 60 percent in the first quarter of 2009. Along with halting several days of home delivery of the Detroit Free Press, the company, along with the Times Co. and Hearst Corp., is contemplating charging a subscription fee for its websites. The venerable New York Times reported in a story April 21, “a first-quarter loss of $74.5 million on Tuesday, compared with a loss of $335,000 in the period a year ago, as it joined the roster of newspaper companies recording the steepest advertising declines in generations.”
Locally, the El Paso Times has recently required its delivery section staff to take a pay cut which will cost Martinez nearly $100 per month.
“This is really going to affect me, because I can’t cut any more fat out – I have cut my cable, my cell phone and I eat less food,” Martinez said. “And now my house payment is going up.”
Carriers are paid for each newspaper they deliver. With the pay cut she stands to lose one fourth of a cent per paper on weekdays, and one cent per issue on Sundays.
Linda S. Martinez folding and bagging papers. (Quinton Martinez/Borderzine.com)
This follows the furloughs that full-time Times employees were required to take earlier this year. Unlike the writers, editors and photographers with the publication, carriers do not get vacation, benefits or even retirement, so her predicament is a tough one.
Even worse, she has problems with her back, arms, wrists and shoulders as a result of the years of physical labor, even in the worst of conditions.
“We have to deliver every day – in rain, snow, heat and cold, and in the spring time especially, wind,” Martinez said. “In 20 years I have taken six, maybe seven, vacations.”
The toll is not just a personal one, as Martinez said that much of her profits end up going towards vehicle repairs, because of the wear and tear that comes with stopping and going and frequent swerving 365 days a year.
Compounding her problem is her lack of education. She dropped out of Andress High School in 1976 a few credits short of her high school diploma. Through the years she has attempted to get her GED, but has never actually finished what she started.
Now she faces the prospect of a job search as a 50-year-old widow with a mortgage and utility bills that she can barely afford making roughly $18,000 a year.
Throughout most of her two decades delivering the El Paso Times, it was a family affair. She said her husband helped her, along with all three of her children, who are adults now. That included not only the delivery of the papers, but the collection of the payments as well.
Following a divorce, and the eventual passing of her ex-husband, and with her children having jobs and families of their own, she now tackles the difficult task of throwing almost 600 papers each day alone.
She initially took the job, working in the middle of the night, to be with her children in the evening, after getting home from work one night to find the house in shambles after being burglarized.
“I thought if I was there during the day and evening that no one would break into the house,” she said.
Twenty years later she still holds the same job yet now she lives alone with her dog, but has never been robbed since. However, working after midnight has had its dangers.
“My son was stabbed while we were out throwing Sunday papers,” she said. “We were attacked. I have also been followed by police, neighborhood watch groups and drunks.”
She never thought it was going to be an easy job, but certainly a steady one. Now she can’t say that.
“A lot of newspapers are going bankrupt and circulation is down and it hits home now that we have to take a pay cut,” Martinez said. “When I see newspapers – like in Detroit that are either cutting out days altogether, or ceasing their print operations it worries me.”
She admits that not all carriers are as fearful as she is about possibly losing their jobs, because they have a day job along with working for the Times.
Martinez however, isn’t as lucky. She said that she hasn’t actively looked for a job in more than 15 years.
“It was hard then, but it is a lot more difficult to find work after being a carrier,” she said. “You essentially run your own business and you don’t have to follow a lot of rules, and don’t need a big wardrobe.”
The world has changed a lot since she had previous jobs such as short-order cook, waitress, and cashier and she believes her lack of computer proficiency and education will hinder her job search.
“Five years ago I thought that this was going to be something that I could do as long as I needed to,” she said.
Now she’s not so sure.
