Going out to get mine right now -- for as long as they last.
"Contract vote today for Guild as drivers approve Globe cuts" by Robert Gavin, Globe Staff | June 8, 2009
The money-losing paper....
Related: The Boston Globe Admits Iraq Lies Killed It
The Globe's owner, The New York Times Co., has said it needs a total of $20 million in savings from Globe unions or else it may shutter the paper. Without the savings, the Globe, New England's largest newspaper, is on track to lose about $85 million this year as the recession decimates advertising revenue and readers migrate online, according to the Times Co.
Hi.
Union president Daniel Totten said: "We're in a situation that began with threats and continues with threats."
See: The New York Times is a Terrorist
The ratification vote has divided Guild members. Brian Mooney, a Globe reporter for 21 years and among the most vocal opponents of the contract offer, has called for rejection over fairness issues. Mooney, 57, said the Times Co. wants Guild members to make steep sacrifices, even as nonunion managers this year received bonuses and increased contributions to 401(k) retirement plans to offset pension reductions.
"The people who work with us, who supervise us, why can't they take the same hit as the rest of us?" Mooney said. In memos to staff, Globe publisher P. Steven Ainsley has said that nonunion managers are taking their share of cuts, including the elimination of 2009 bonuses....
"In 2008, Ainsley, the publisher, received about $113,000 in bonus pay, down from more than $314,000 in 2007"
Meanwhile, the UNION GUYS didn't even get a RAISE for FOUR YEARS!
He got a BONUS for LOSING $50 MILLION, huh?
Erin Ailworth, a 28-year-old reporter, said she will vote for the contract because the imposed wage cut would mean losing nearly a quarter of her pay. That would bring her back to what she made while at the Orlando Sentinel five years ago, when her rent was one-third of what she pays in Boston. "I think the company is out of time in terms of needing to get these savings," Ailworth said. "I can't afford to gamble."
Scott Helman, 34, a reporter and editor at the Globe for nine years, said he doesn't know how he will vote. "On the one hand, you're voting for something that would be awful," he said. "But on the other hand, voting 'no' means something potentially more awful. I'm wrestling with it very hard, and I probably won't know until I walk in to vote."
Looming in the background, meanwhile, could be a messy legal battle. Should Guild members reject the contract and management move to impose the 23 percent pay cut, union officials say they will immediately launch a legal challenge with the National Labor Relations Board.
Both sides would be taking big risks by going down this path, legal specialists said. Guild members may have to live with the huge pay cut during a process that could take several months, if not years. The Times Co. could face having to pay millions of dollars in back salaries and interest should the Guild challenge succeed.
Like I give a crap about their problems after the s*** they have shoveled!
Also yesterday, the Globe's machinists union, which represents fewer than 30 workers, rejected an undisclosed number of concessions, the only union to do so. Globe spokesman Robert Powers, said the machinists' vote "will not affect the $20 million in needed costs savings from our major unions."
How can it not?
It's a reflex, isn't it, the lying?
"Globe union votes no; Paper declares impasse, slashes wages 23 percent" by Robert Gavin and Keith O'Brien, Globe Staff | June 9, 2009
The Boston Globe's largest union last night narrowly rejected $10 million in wage and benefit cuts, and about an hour later the paper's owner declared an impasse in negotiations and imposed a 23 percent pay cut on the union's members, effective next week.
The move by The New York Times Co., which said the Globe's dire financial condition gave it no choice, could quickly shift the bitter contract dispute from the bargaining table to the National Labor Relations Board and federal courts....
Guild members, with about 80 percent participating, voted 277 to 265 to reject the company's contract offer, which included pay cuts totaling more than 10 percent; deep cuts to health and retirement benefits, including a pension freeze; and the elimination of lifetime job guarantees for about 170 veteran members.
The Guild is the only one of the Globe's four major unions to reject concessions the Times Co. said it needs to continue operating the Globe, projected to lose $85 million this year without significant cost savings.... David Abel, a Globe reporter for 10 years who declined to say how he voted yesterday, called the looming pay cut "demoralizing, dispiriting, and financially eviscerating."
Guild members would probably have to live with the onerous pay cut until the case is resolved, because courts rarely grant orders to block such moves while the cases are being litigated, according to labor law specialists. On the other hand, the Times Co. could be liable for millions of dollars in back salaries and interest if the Guild challenge eventually succeeds....
In many ways, yesterday passed like any other day at the 137-year-old newspaper.
The Globe just lost another $137,000.
But with Guild members voting in a large numbers - turnout exceeded 80 percent - it was decidedly not a typical day. Some voted no, others voted yes, and still others paced the hallways at the paper unsure of how to vote....
Back to the negotiating table?
