Boston Globe Union, NY Times Reach Accord

The Boston Globe's biggest union reached a tentative accord early Wednesday with owner New York Times to secure the money-losing newspaper's survival after a month of intense negotiations.

The Boston Newspaper Guild, the lone hold-out of seven unions on a cost-cutting deal, agreed to a substantial pay cut, unpaid furloughs and changes in lifetime job guarantee provisions, the Globe reported on its website.

The agreement came shortly after 3 a.m. EDT after about 10 hours of talks. Globe spokesman Robert Powers said the parties had agreed not to release details until Guild leadership speaks with members Thursday.

But a report on the Globe website, citing anonymous sources, provided details, including modifications of lifetime job guarantees, a key sticking point.

The Times , which bought the Globe for $1.1 billion in 1993, threatened in early April to close the 137-year-old newspaper unless its unions agree to $20 million of concessions to staunch $85 million of projected losses this year.

The future of New England's largest newspaper has been in doubt during a month of negotiations that have stumbled over the contentious issue of lifetime job guarantees enjoyed by about 190 members of the Guild.

The Guild, representing some 600 workers including the newsroom staff, has sought to preserve lifetime job guarantees, saying their elimination would pave the way for layoffs of some of the paper's highest-paid veteran staff.

A union representative was unavailable for comment.

Marathon Negotiations

The Globe is one of the nation's most acclaimed regional newspapers, a winner of 20 Pulitzer Prizes that dominates news coverage in the six-state New England region, but the paper's circulation has dropped steeply as readers go online for news.

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The Globe's average weekday circulation fell 4 percent to 302,638 for the six months to March 31 from a year earlier, according to the Audit Bureau of Circulations.

Many U.S. newspapers including the Globe have lost 20 percent or more of their advertising revenue as circulation shrinks.

Some industry watchers said negotiations for a buyer could begin once the Times Co wins the concessions it seeks. The talks were the latest in a series of marathon late-night sessions in Weymouth, Massachusetts, a suburb of Boston. Six other unions representing employees of the Globe have tentative agreements representing half of the $20 million in cuts the Times Co says the paper needs.

The Times Co threatened as late as Sunday night to file notice with the U.S. government that it would close the Globe, but withdrew it on Monday, citing progress in negotiations.

The Globe's projected red ink, which follows losses of $50 million last year, comes at a difficult time for its New York owner, which ended 2008 with $1.1 billion of debt and recently reported a first-quarter net loss of $74.5 million.

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