Ok, so it was announced a year ago, but details about the centralized copy desk that McClatchy is setting up at the Sacramento Bee are finally emerging.

A bargaining update from the Bee Guild says that McClatchy will begin assembling the center mid-year and hopes to be up and running by the end of 2013.

The new center may handle more than just McClatchy’s California papers, the Guild reports. “The new copy center is being conceived to handle additional products beyond the Sacramento and Modesto Bee newspapers. This could include contract work for third-party publications (outside McClatchy) as well as other McClatchy papers.”

The Guild also discussed a company proposal to cut the hours of an unlimited number of full-time staffers, and the company’s policies on part-timers freelancing for other publications. “The company said this allows more ‘flexibility’ to manage cost cutting by being able to save some money short of laying people off,” the Guild wrote.