New York Times Co. Threatens To Shut Down Boston Globe

BOSTON — Union leaders say The New York Times Co. has told The Boston Globe's unions they must agree quickly to $20 million in concessions.

The Globe reported the Times Co. threatened to shut down the newspaper if the concessions aren't met.

Executives from the Times Co., which owns the Globe, met this week with leaders of the newspaper's 13 unions. Boston Newspaper Guild president Daniel Totten said the concessions could include pay cuts, the end of company pension contributions and the elimination of lifetime job guarantees. The Guild is the Globe's biggest union, representing more than 700 employees.

Both a Times spokeswoman and the Globe's publisher, Steve Ainsley, refused to comment for a story on the Globe's Web site. Ainsley, Totten and Globe editor Martin Baron did not immediately return messages left after business hours by The Associated Press.

The concessions will be negotiated with each of the unions, leaders said.

"We all know the newspaper industry is going through great transition and loss," said Ralph Giallanella, secretary-treasurer of the Teamsters Local 259, which represents about 200 drivers who deliver the newspaper. "The ad revenues have fallen off the cliff. Just based on everything that's going on around the country, they're serious."

Economic woes have ripped through the newspaper industry in recent months. Scripps Co. closed the Rocky Mountain News in Denver and Hearst Corp. shut down the Seattle Post-Intelligencer. The Christian Science Monitor, which is based in Boston, stopped daily publication last week in favor of online news. Other major papers have filed for bankruptcy.

The Globe has gone through several rounds of layoffs and buyouts and reportedly lost tens of millions of dollars last year.

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Information from: The Boston Globe, http://www.boston.com/globe

Comments

[NHBill]

And won The Pulitzer Prize for it.

[drymartini1]

Problem is not about good or bad paper.

Newspaper survive on circulation and advertising. both are down huge. no wonder !!

i mean who reads newspapers these days. i meant the print edition.

why buy a print edition of NY times when you can get INSTANT NEWS at the nytimes website. same for la times and others.

print editions will be a thing of the past pretty soon. and there is nobody to blame because thats how technology works.

cassette player went obsolte. vhs player went obsolete. why shouldnt newspapers.

[MichaelinPhilly]

"Who reads print editions these days"? Well, I do, for one. And people like me are making it possible for you to read the news for free.

Reading a paper newspaper is a very different experience than hunting for news on line. You'll happen on stories you never would have read on line because you wouldn't have looked for them. And from everything I've heard, newspaper readership is higher than ever (including on line). Newspapers have journalistic resources no one else does. No one. When something happens, the websites of established newspapers are among the first sites most people will turn to, I'd guess. And look how newspapers sold out the day after the election. (And in this town, how paid circulation went up during the World Series.)

The websites don't make enough to support themselves, The websites - and people who see no problem getting their news free (and why should they see a problem if the papers are stupid enough to give it away) are actually draining resources from the print editions. Yes, you understand me correctly: the print editions and their paying readerships are subsidizing the websites. The websites are a two-edged sword: it's wonderful that the web has made accessible news sources from the other side of the country or the world, but they need to stop shooting the papers in the foot. Because when the print edition of the New York Times goes, their website will go too. And then you'll miss it.

[StevieRae]

Is this a preview of things to come if Congress passes the latest version of workers' right to organize?

Will the pent up frustrations of so many (much of it justified) newly organized union groups demand wage and other benefits that push more companies into bankruptcy or closure given our near depressed economy?

Give the precarious condition of the NYT, I can see them shutting the Globe down.

[NHBill]

Union workers didn't bankrupt the Times Co. Massive debt did. At a time when it was clear that newspapers were in the midst of a paradigm shift many newspaper companies borrowed vast sums of money to buy other newspapers. (The NYT bought the Globe for over a billion dollars for example) Now that the economy has slashed ad budgets they can't service their debt. Lousy management is the reason newspapers are in trouble not unions. Now more than ever workers need to unite to protect themselves from the horrible business practices of totally unregulated corporations.

[ella52]

Absolutely true.

[StevieRae]

"Now more than ever workers need to unite to protect themselves from the horrible business practices of totally unregulated corporation"

Funny, you didn't mention stockholders. They should be the ones outraged and flying into the streets with their pitch folks. Who provides the capital to create jobs??

What would workers do to protect themselves?

[JerryLevy]

Their Middle East reporting is as shoddy as it comes, usually printing innuendo and whatever the Palestinian PR groups accuse Israel of doing. When the Abu Garib prison scandal broke, they printed 43 front page stories on it but printed stories about Islamic terror cells in the U.S. just once and inside the newspaper. Their advocacy against any Republican candidate is ledgendary. Why is it the NY Times is losing circulation and the Wall Street Journal is prospering? Let them die with their anti American arrogance.

[Bariis]

Hope they resolve the $$ issue otherwise I'm really going to miss 'The Big Picture section'.

[MichaelinPhilly]

Buy a newspaper that's as good as (arguably better than) theirs, in a city that's just as entitled to theirs (if not more so) to a good paper, and then threaten to shut it down??

The New York Times is the most arrogant newspaper in the most arrogant city in the world.

This is absolutely outrageous.

[gdcb1128]

The real reason is that the Yankees can't stand that they have become second (or third) fiddle to the Redsox. New York is suffering delusions of grandeur in their arrogance. They've lost their world domination in baseball. The shame and embarrassment.

[ramper]

It is getting harder and harder to line the bottom of the bird cages.

[Bitsko]

Demands for union concessions are nothing new for the Times Corporation. Why folks think the Times is liberal is beyond me.

[hippie chucker]

The editorial staff-unabashedly liberal. The business managers, not as much.

[Joseph Upton]

How is it "union busting" if the unions price themselves out of the market. You lefties will never understand economics.

[wanj]

And we are in this mess b/c you understand economics? Please spare us the talking points.

[jood42]

As a leftie myself, I can affirm that being pro-union doesn't mean accepting every one of their positions unquestioningly. I think the myopia of unions fighting for excessive concessions during such an obvious time of financial hardship is obviously self-defeating. I think you'll be hard pressed to find piles of liberals in favor of bankrupting companies with unreasonable union demands.

[Cynth]

So there, Joseph. As jood42 has eloquently explained, you can't paint people here with a broad stroke. Moreover, there is a lot more nuance and shades of grey in the world than you seem to embrace.

[ramper]

Are you a starter or a reliever?

[hark]

Can't you guys see anything in other than either black or white? You project that limitation onto us. You are so pathetically out of it, constantly forcing everything into one extreme or the other.

[Bitsko]

How's neoconservatism working out for ya?

[v eyepete]

This said while top executives get millions in bonuses. Middle class people who stupidly shill for the rich really annoy me. The people who fought and died to create unions in the 1930's, got better working conditions and pay for the entire nation. Middle class people who want to be slaves, really annoy me.

[Servility]

All print newspapers must be put out of business. The carbon footprint for print media is outrageous! Anyone that subscribes to print media hates the environment. The sooner the NYT dies, the easier it will be for the rest of them to fold and stop polluting the world and creating global warming.

[MichaelinPhilly]

Okay, would the moderators explain why it's OK to be this judgmental about others' choices (my elderly parents subscribe to newspapers because they always have, and they don't have Internet access, not because they hate the environment), but not OK to challenge it?

[holyhandgrenaid]

Shameful. The Globe is far and away the best paper in the Northeast. It blows the socks off the competition.

[larry278]

Ellen Goodman, 1 of my favorite columnists, will survive if the Boston Globe folds but what happens to the Globe's other writers? The Globe has a stable of very good writers. Try scanning the Globe's site to see that for yourself. I don't live in Ma but I'd miss the Globe. The death of the Globe will be an unintended consequence of the cluster of deaths of daily newspapers. Most of the papers that are folding won't be missed. The Boston Globe is an exception; it will be missed when it folds. You can't say that about the NYT, owner of the Boston Globe. When will the NYT fold the International Herald Tribune of Paris? The irony is that folding these papers won't save the NYT; the NYT will fold in June, 2009 & become a free shopper in NYC, S Ct & N NJ.

[nicho]

It's called "union busting." Just another legacy from Ronald Reagan. The fascists are winning.

[jood42]

Why the slavish devotion to an institution that's unevenly managed? Some unions do great work by protecting the rights of their workers while still taking into account a difficult financial environment. If one union is taking action that could put an employer out of business, is that really responsible behavior worthy of protection?

[Cynth]

I'm afraid I can't agree, nicho. This is a sector in dire straits and in a tough economy, no less. Many can simply argue it is a dying sector of the media. Given these conditions, asking unions to make adjustments can mean the survival of the paper and saving many jobs. Just ask the many employees of defunct newspapers nationwide if they would have made some sacrifices vs. losing their jobs when their paper folded. Unions, in looking out for the interests of their members, must be realistic. If they are too principled and abandon common sense and reason in today's economic reality, they risk suicide.

[larry278]

Does anybody remember when Mike Quill, leader of a printing trades union, had strikes to torce the papers to give big raises to the members of his union? NYC had more papers then. There is an urban legend about NYT managers going to Miami to see how the MIAMI HERALD had automated printing their paper. The NYT & some other papers in NYC bought state of the art automated presses. Mike Quill or some other union leader called a strike. Somehow the NYT & other papers that bought automated presses managed to put out papers with fewer members of the printers unions working. Some say that broke Quill's old unions. Printing & publishing has always been a rough business. This story may be more legend than fact. But NYC has far fewer daily papers. Not as many printers are needed to print NYC's surviving papers.
Sometimes urban legends are true. Printing & publishing still is a rough business. Remember when Rupert Murdoch bought the WSG. Mr Murdoch bought out a powerful, but feuding, family. Mr Murdoch made a fortune by playing rough in Australia, Europe, the USA & other places.

[v eyepete]

Since you mention Rupert Murdoch, do you think it is unreasonable for me to worry that a person who is not American has control of such a large part of the American media? I think I would feel better if his news outlets owned by Mr. Murdoch seemed to have journalistic integrity, but they don't. He doesn't care about America. He cares about money. I am afraid that I will have to protest and not support Mr Murdoch, his news outlets, or the products of those who advertise on them.

[PublicusOrator]

Mike Quill was not the leader of the printing trades union but of the Transport Workers Union (TWU), subway bus personnel. He was penalized by the Liberal Mayor John Lindsay for leading a strike of public service employees who by law could not strike. Though the gist of your post is correct and not urban myth. Times management did visit the Miami Herald for the purpose cited.

[lacrosse]

When union demands make it impossible to run a business at a profit, what else is there too do? Union executives are just as greedy as the banking CEO's. And the poor worker isn't represented by anyone.

[PublicusOrator]

Reagan disbanded the air controllers union, when it called an illegal strike. Their are cosequences for breaking the law. They knew the law when they accepted the job.

[ccsammy]

Shut down the stupid paper who care its contents are lousy just like yours

[Big0725]

I'm with you. I guess the newspaper industry is feeling similar pangs as the gaslight industry did with the advent of electric light. Let these dinosaurs go the way of the buggy whip and high top leather shoes.

[Grulg]

That's sad. The Globe is a great paper.