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Globe issues ultimatum: unions must settle or face closure
With a midnight deadline approaching, Boston Globe management tonight issued an ultimatum to its four major unions: Agree to major financial and contract concessions, including the abolition of lifetime job guarantees for some workers, or the paper’s owner, The New York Times Co., would file a plant-closing notice with the state.

The notice, required under federal law, would allow the Times Co. to carry out its threat to shutter the 137-year-old newspaper in 60 days.

‘‘We have provided our unions with a copy of a notice that we are prepared to file [today] if we are unable to reach an agreement by the midnight deadline,’’ Globe spokesman Robert Powers said. ‘‘This notice is required under the Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act, which requires 60 days advance notice before the closure of a business. Filing the WARN notice is a difficult step that we would like to avoid but, unfortunately, given the state of the negotiations, it is one we must be prepared to take if negotiations are not successful.’’

If the notice is filed, Powers said, the paper would continue to publish through the 60-day period.

The ultimatum, issued shortly before 10 p.m., came after just over a month of intense negotiations with unions over $20 million in financial givebacks and concessions on contract language, particularly the elimination of the job guarantees that apply to about 450 union workers. It was issued after Globe management summoned union leaders to the offices of the Labor Guild of the Archdiocese of Boston, where negotiations had been underway with the paper’s largest union, the Boston Newspaper Guild.

The Guild, in a statement, decried the management move: ‘‘This tactic, while expected, is representative of the bullying manner in which the Times Company has conducted itself during these negotiations. Despite the Company’s hostile tactics, we continue to negotiate in good faith and work diligently toward an acceptable outcome.’’

An official of one of the Globe unions summed up the situation bluntly: ‘‘Do or die.’’

The Guild represents more than 600 editorial, advertising, and business office workers. The other major unions are Teamsters Local 1, which represents 250 full- and part-time mailers; Teamsters Local 259, which represents more than 200 delivery truck drivers; and the Boston Newspaper Printing Pressmen’s Union Local 3, which represents about 90 press operators.

The Globe is projected to lose $85 million this year without significant cost reductions, according to the Times Co. Like many newspapers, the Globe has been hit hard by the migration of readers and advertisers to the Internet, and by the nation’s deep recession.

As the midnight deadline approached, union officials said they had essentially agreed to financial concessions that the Times Co. was seeking. The Guild, in a statement tonight, said the union had ‘‘presented the New York Times Company and Globe management with a proposal that exceeds the $10 million in cuts demanded. This proposal was the product of arduous deliberations. These tremendous sacrifices, across virtually all categories of compensation and benefits, are more than adequate to continue The Boston Globe’s mission of quality journalism.’’

A source close to the union said the Guild proposal included cuts in 20 different pay and benefit categories.

But the key issue dividing management and unions tonight was the elimination of the lifetime job guarantees, a step that management has sought since the start of the bargaining, and which would give management substantially more flexibility in reshaping the newspaper and 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, declined by more than 30 percent in the first three months of this year from the same period in 2008.

Unions have resisted giving up the guarantees, arguing they paid for the guarantees with major concessions in years past.

Globe management has been locked in intense negotiations with the unions since the beginning of April, when the Times Co. set a May 1 deadline to gain the concessions. After a marathon session Friday with the Guild, Globe management reported progress, and the deadline was extended until midnight.

On Saturday, management bargained for 16 hours with the other three major unions. These four unions account for about 90 percent of the Globe’s union workers.

The Times Co. is seeking $10 million from the Guild, $5 million from the mailers, $2.5 million from the drivers, and $2.2 million from the pressmen.

Throughout the negotiations, the future of the Globe has seemed to largely turn on the outcome of negotiations with the Guild. The two sides have tangled over figures and contract language, with progress seeming to come slowly.

Globe staffers who followed the progress of the talks like most everyone else through sporadic news reports were wary tonight about what proposals the negotiations would produce. Robert Alabiso, who does Web support and training in the Globe’s advertising department, said he was worried about what pay cuts might be coming.

Depending on how steep the cuts are, Alabiso, who lives in Plymouth, said, ‘‘I’d have to weigh whether it’s worth it to keep making that commute everyday.’’

Marisa Pirrera, a 34-year-old Burlington sales representative selling online ads on Boston.com, said she, too, was worried about potential loss of salary. Pirrera, who has been at the Globe for two years, hoped that any union proposal would cut lifetime job guarantees before wages.

‘‘Why should people have lifetime job guarantees?’’ Pirrera said. ‘‘Your job is based on your performance and your input into the company.’’

Beth Daley, a Globe reporter and Guild delegate awaiting a resolution in Weymouth tonight, said the union is trying to do its best to weigh the needs of all employees, even though different people want to preserve different items.

‘‘Some are worried about healthcare,’’ Daley said. ‘‘Some are worried about their pensions. Others are more concerned about lifetime job guarantees. And union leadership is trying to come to an agreement where everyone will share the pain equitably.’’
http://www.boston.com/news/local/breaking_news/2009/05/globe_issues_ul.html