"Globe, guild talk into the night; Company calls for large pay cuts" by Robert Gavin and Keith O'Brien, Globe Staff | May 6, 2009
Boston Globe management and the Boston Newspaper Guild were negotiating late into last night as the two sides struggled to agree on the last - and biggest - package of concessions that the Globe's owner, the New York Times Co., says it needs to keep operating the newspaper.
The two sides began the bargaining session so far apart that the company has proposed what it called its "last, best offer" - slashing wages of Guild members by about 23 percent to gain the $10 million in concessions sought from the union, according to union and management representatives with knowledge of the negotiations.
How about no bonuses for this guy?
The Guild, which represents more than 600 editorial, advertising, and business office workers, is the last major union without a tentative agreement after more than a month of high-stakes bargaining to wring $20 million and major contract concessions. Globe management presented that offer during Sunday's marathon negotiating session; it was a move that could lay the groundwork for management to declare an impasse and unilaterally impose the draconian wage cuts, said Thomas Kohler, a Boston College law professor. Labor laws allow companies, under certain legal conditions, to impose the terms of their last, best offer if an impasse is reached in negotiations.
What a bunch of asshole pricks!!!
Globe spokesman Robert Powers said.... "we need to help put the Globe on a sound financial footing." Union officials could not be reached for comment. But in a letter to members sent last night, union president Daniel Totten said the Times Co. has not only proposed a 23 percent wage cut but also "intimated that a large layoff can be expected regardless of the outcome of negotiations."
"The tactics and practices of the New York Times Co. are unacceptable," Totten said in the letter. "But the Boston Guild entered [last night's] negotiations committed to negotiating an agreement that we can bring to our members for a vote."
It's called BAD FAITH! What HYPOCRITES with their PREACHY EDITORIAL PAGES and s*** news coverage!
The union on Sunday offered a proposal that provided, by the union's reckoning, slightly more than $10 million in savings, but management negotiators rejected it. The proposal included a wide range of cuts in pay and benefits, including a 3.5 percent wage reduction for most members, pension cutbacks, and a lengthening of the workweek from 37.5 to 40 hours. The talks, however, have become deadlocked over the company's drive to eliminate lifetime job guarantees for about 190 Guild employees.
These guys ain't even working 40 hours?
As for the guarantees, those are the highest-paid and most-experienced reporters. Times wants to ax 'em in favor of cheap, stoo-pid, kids.
Declaring an impasse would be a risky maneuver that could touch off a messy fight that could drag on for years in courts, at the National Labor Relations Board, and even in the streets, said Kohler. The Detroit newspapers strike of 1995 was touched off after management of the Detroit News and Detroit Free-Press declared an impasse and imposed the conditions of the last contract offer. The strike lasted for 19 months and court battles stretched into the next decade.
So I'll call all the posts the Boston Globe Soap Opera!
"Going to impasse is a high-stakes game because the actual determination of impasse doesn't occur until after the fact," said Kohler. "It's very chancy." Ultimately, the National Labor Relations and courts determine whether the legal requirements of impasse were met, Kohler said. The determination of impasse hinges on findings that both sides made earnest efforts to reach agreement and negotiated in good faith, Kohler said.
Yeah, I heard the Jew York Times didn't act in good faith (what is it with them people?)
Negotiations between the company and the Guild have been laborious and contentious since the Times Co. early last month threatened to shutter the money-losing paper unless unions agreed to major financial and contract concessions within 30 days. The company was prepared to file a 60-day plant closing notice on Monday until Globe management struck deals with three of the paper's four major unions early that morning.
In addition to agreeing to millions of dollars in financial concessions, unions representing press operators and mailers also agreed to change language governing lifetime job guarantees. Union officials have declined to provide details. The agreements still must be ratified by the vote of members of each union. Now those unions are watching the outcome of the Guild negotiations, knowing their livelihood could hinge on the outcome....
Ooooooh, I'm on the edge of my seat!!!
Like many newspapers, the Globe has been hard-hit by the migration of readers to the Internet and the deep national recession. The Globe is projected to lose $85 million this year without significant cost savings, according to the Times Co.
Yeah, the LYING AGENDA-PUSHING had nothing to do with it!!!!
As negotiations have unfolded, though, contract concessions, particularly on job guarantees, have become as important as the financial givebacks to the Times Co. Eliminating lifetime job guarantees would give management more flexibility in shrinking its staff in the face of declining advertising revenues. Advertising revenues for the Times Co.'s New England Media Group, dominated by the Globe, plunged more than 30 percent in the first three months of this year from the same period in 2008.
Yeah, THAT is what the NEWSPAPER BIDNESS is ALL ABOUT: MARKETING an AGENDA!!
Oh, HOW CLEAR THINGS LOOK when I gaze at the s*** sheet in front of me (I buckled today; they got a buck-fifty).
Unions have resisted giving up the guarantees, arguing they paid for them with major concessions in years past. For example, the Guild gave up a no-layoff clause to get the lifetime guarantees in a contract ratified in 1994. As of Monday, Guild officials were still holding fast to job guarantees in their contract. In an interview, Totten said the current contract already has a mechanism for the company to modify the job guarantees through a third-party arbitrator.
Ah, labor contracts don't mean shit; only executive bonuses do.
Update; Union caved.
"Globe, guild reach deal; Details of pact to be released" by Robert Gavin and Keith O'Brien, Globe Staff | May 6, 2009
WEYMOUTH - The Boston Globe's largest union reached a tentative deal with the New York Times Co. shortly after 3 a.m. this morning, agreeing to a substantial pay cut, unpaid furloughs, and modifications to the lifetime job guarantee provisions that protect almost 200 employees in the Boston Newspaper Guild, according to sources familiar with the deal.
With the agreement, the guild, representing more than 600 editorial, advertising, and business office employees, became the last of the newspaper's major unions to agree to concessions with the Times Co. The Globe's parent company now has the $20 million in concessions that it demanded a month ago. And perhaps more importantly, the Times Co. succeeded in changing the job guarantee language, which was widely considered a roadblock to any potential sale of New England's largest newspaper....
Oh, so the TIMES is gonna DITCH IT!
I give you Ms. Eileen McNamara:
"From the moment the Times Co. purchased The Globe in 1993, it has treated New England's largest newspaper like a cheap whore"
That's her, not me, folks!
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