The largest union has just rejected the "final" offer by parent corporation, The New York Times, to save the venerable Boston institution.
By a vote of 277 to 265 the largest Boston Globe union rejected the NYT's final offer to keep the paper open. The union asserts that the concessions demanded were unreasonable. The rejected contract proposal included five-day unpaid furloughs. an 8.3 per cent cut in wages as well as reductions in health and pension benefits. It also would have eliminated lifetime job guarantees for 190 union workers. NYT has said that if the contract was rejected, it would try to impose a 23 percent wage cut. It also could follow through on its threat to close the Globe.
I hope that calmer heads prevail. I realize that the Globe has been losing millions and that many papers have closed in the last few months and I wonder whether this is a situation where the union is convinced that there is too much at stake for the NYT to close the Globe. The Boston Globe has been the voice of liberal New England for 137 years and it has employed numerous excellent columnists and award winning reporters. Will the Derrick Z. Jacksons, Scot Leigh's and Joan Vennochi's be silenced? As an avid reader of the Globe I can attest that should the paper be closed, there will be a gaping hole in my morning routine and I will be the poorer for that loss.
UPDATE - The Boston Globe has just responded to the union vote indicating that it will be imposing unilateral wage reductions of as much as 23 per cent!!! This cannot be good under any scenario.