Word out of the “Eastern Division” of L.A. News Group is that about a half-dozen advertising layout/design people previously located at the San Gabriel Valley Tribune have been instructed to report to work at the San Bernardino Sun offices, beginning Monday.

This is only the latest episode in what has been a pattern of employee-jerk-arounds perpetrated by management in MediaNews’ distressed Eastern holdings — comprised of what’s left of the Trib (including the Pasadena Star-News and Whittier Daily News mastheads), San Bernardino and Ontario.

Being told that you now must report to San Bernardino to perform a job for which you were hired in San Gabriel is no small matter. The Sun offices are 45 miles or so east of Covina (the Trib’s location), out on the traffic-choked I-10 (or 210, which is rapidly clotting up). Making for a one-way commute on the order of an hour, depending on the time of day.

Previous Eastern forced migrations have been random, arbitrary and in several cases of limited duration. Which reflects brainless management … or worse, cynical management hoping to dump employees by imposing sudden and dramatic commutes they know/hope X amount of employees won’t make. (And if they are older and higher-paid, so much the better.)

In this case, the jerked-around employees are not in the newsroom. Not that it matters when it comes to demonstrating how LANG treats its people.

My source told me that not all of San Gabriel’s people doing the ad layout/design jobs will make the trek to Berdoo. Which, sadly, is what managers probably hoped would happen.

“I am beginning to think they make these kind of moves to cut down staff without having to fire anyone,” a LANG employee told me. “Gas is near $4 a gallon, so when they move them to an office 50 miles away, half of them quit.”

I suppose we will have to wait until Monday to see who shows up, but speculation in San Bernardino is that perhaps four people (out of six?) will actually make an appearance at The Sun building on Monday.

Previous notes about forced relocations in the often-overlooked LANG Eastern zone were previously discussed on this blog here and especially here.

And for the record … apparently all LANG holdings east of the 710 freeway are now known as the “Inland Newspapers,” in LANGspeak.

Good luck to all of you still in the LANG gulag … and don’t get too used to working out of any one office.