A little bit of AP's "family" bites the dust

As of tomorrow, a little bit of what made the AP a special place to work bites the dust -- kicked out, actually, a small indication, it would seem, of the "throw everything overboard to keep things afloat" mentality roiling the industry.

The AP Employees Federal Credit Union will be no more as of Aug. 1. This little credit union, which had some office space at the AP's headquarters, served the wire service's far-flung staff for 52 years. It was a nice perk -- the AP provided the office space and the employees got the benefit of a financial institution attuned to their sometimes quirky needs and just a phone call away.

Well, the APFCU will merge with the Entertainment Industries Federal Credit Union, but it is not voluntary. As the APFCU tells it: "After fity-two years, the Associated Press informed us that we should go our separate ways. They advised us to negotiate a lease in the credit union's name with the building management at 450 west 33rd street. Efforts to get that lease, however, proved difficult and never materialized because we were always considered part of the Associated Press and the building management could not understand why we had to get our own lease.

Eventually we were served with a legal document to vacate the premises by April 18. Our attorney was able to get us an extension ..."

You get the idea. You know, when you spread the cost of the square footage for those offices among all the APFCU members, I'll bet it wasn't much more than some of the money the AP spends on publications reminding its workers that they're all part of the AP "family" -- but it said so much more.