Globe Managers, Boston Newspaper Guild Report Reaching An Agreement
BOSTON, MA (May 6, 2009) – The Boston Globe and the Boston Newspaper Guild reached a tentative agreement at about 4 a.m. Wednesday morning on concessions that will keep the newspaper from being closed by owners The New York Times Co., the union president said, but it may take up to 30 days for the Guild members to schedule and conduct a vote on the agreement.
A Guild meeting with members is now scheduled for Thursday. Details of the agreement are being withheld until Guild members can hear the details first during their meeting.
The Guild was the last union owners said they needed to reach an agreement with in order to avoid filing a 60-day notice of closing the Globe. Yesterday Globe managers said they had reached concession agreements with six other unions, putting pressure on the Guild to come back to the table and negotiate their concessions. Globe managers were asking the combined unions that represent Globe workers to make nearly $20 million in concessions or the Times Co. said they would shut down the 137-year-old paper.
The newspaper is forecast to lose $85 million in 2009 unless owners make major cuts, the Times Co. said.
Unions representing Globe workers have been asked to make $19.7 million in concessions ($10 million from Boston Newspaper Guild workers, $5 million from the mailers' union, $2.5 million from the delivery truck drivers, and $2.2 million from press operators).
Early Monday the Teamsters Local 259, which represents about 210 Boston Globe drivers, said they reached an agreement with Globe management. The union would not disclose the details but said their concessions, which were agreed upon sometime after midnight, are worth about $2.5 million.
Later Monday the pressmans' union said they've also reached a tentative agreement with the Times Co., but the Guild "took a break" after the marathon bargaining session – saying that the Globe management had rejected their officer of a proposal that included a 3.5 percent pay cut for most employees and unpaid furloughs.
On Sunday a newspaper spokesman told the Globe that managers had provided the unions with a copy of the closure notice and that they were "prepared to file by midnight next Sunday" if their concessions weren't met. The closure notice is required by the WARN Act to give employees of large companies 60 days notice if the owners intend to shut down the business.
The Guild says that it represents more than 600 editorial, advertising, and business workers at the Boston daily.
In an earlier statement the Guild said, "Despite the company's hostile tactics, we continue to negotiate in good faith and work diligently toward an acceptable outcome." The Guild says the closure threat came after the Guild had presented a proposal that exceeded the $10 million in cuts being asked of them.
The Guild on Tuesday said it's a "mystery" why their initial proposal was rejected and they started a Facebook page to track their officer and negotiations with the Times Co. Globe managers, in the meantime, are blaming the Guild for being the only union to not reach an agreement with them now.
Readership habits and print advertising sales have impacted publishing in Boston the same as it has in almost every other American city with daily newspapers in recent years. Another old, famous Boston newspaper – The Christian Science Monitor – earlier this year stopped being a daily print product and became a 24/7 online operation with a weekly printed magazine-format magazine.
Other American newspapers making headlines for being in dire straights at the beginning of this week include The Columbian in Vancouver, WA, where the newspaper's parent company filed for bankruptcy protection late Friday in Tacoma; the Morning Call in Allentown, where 70 jobs have been cut in Pennsylvania; and also in Pennsylvania the Reading Eagle, where 52 workers have been laid off with absolutely no severance pay.
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