Reminder to Cease Printing Operations in Vernon

Reminder Media, Inc., the parent company of the weekly newspapers, has announced it will stop the actual printing of its publications in Vernon.

The announcement was made on the Reminder Web site.

By early October, printing, inserting and bagging operations will be outsourced from the Vernon plant, and the work will be performed across the Massachusetts border at the Springfield Republican, the story on the Web site indicated.

The Republican's state-of-the-art plant is located right off Interstate-91. The Reminder plant is located at its complex at 130 Old Town Road in Vernon.

All other departments will continue to operate at the Reminder’s Vernon office, including customer service, sales, ad design, accounting, information technology and circulation, the story on the Web site indicated.

Reminder Media, Inc. will continue to publish 15 local editions of the ReminderNews, remindernews.com, and Reminder Gold Pages Directories "without any interruption in service to readers or advertisers," according to the story.

In the story, Publisher Ken Hovland Jr. was quoted as saying,  “This change will significantly lower costs, so we may continue to effectively serve our customers and keep advertising rates affordable.”

He said in the story that employees that held printing, bindery and trucking jobs will be laid off, but added some workers will be offered new jobs in Springfield.

A number of potential job losses was not presented in the story.

The Reminder was first published in 1949.

After last year’s October snow storm, during a week-long power outage, the papers were printed in Springfield.

Outsourcing printing operations has been a common practice in the newspaper industry in recent years.