Posted on 04/03/2009 9:45:06 PM PDT by GQuagmire
The New York Times Co. has threatened to shut The Boston Globe unless the newspaper's unions swiftly agree to $20 million in concessions, union leaders said yesterday.Executives from the Times Co. and Globe made the demands Thursday morning in an approximately 90-minute meeting with leaders of the newspaper's 13 unions, union officials said. The possible concessions include pay cuts, the end of pension contributions by the company, and the elimination of lifetime job guarantees now enjoyed by some veteran employees, said Daniel Totten, president of the Boston Newspaper Guild, the Globe's biggest union, which represents more than 700 editorial, advertising, and business office employees.
(Excerpt) Read more at boston.com ...
Boston Herald article......
Sweet it tis. I wish them all a quick demise.
We’re all socialists unless we don’t feel like it..
Promises, promises.
13 unions!!!!! This may be part of the problem...
The unions need to hang tough against these profiteers. Solidarity with the working man. The Globe failing would be worse than Dafur. I think these union workers deserve raises. Double their pay.
Shut down the NYT to save the Boston paper. Diversity, that’s what we want.
Oh, excuse me. Pardon my intrusion. I thought I was posting on Free Repubic!
Did you forget the sarcasm tag?
Yeah. I thought it was pretty obvious. We should back the unions bleeding the NY Times/Globe to death. I think the union members at the NY times need to be paid more, have more time off, work shorter hours for more pay. If we only save a million trees. ;-)
It really is worse than Dafur - the NY Times editor said so.
I don’t know what has happenedto me. As a union member during part of my working life and a compassionate, caring person,(At least that is the way I have viewed myself) I am concerned about my reaction to this story.
I don’t care what happens to that paper and I certainly don’t care what happens to the union. As far as I am concerned they deserve whatever they get. I can imagine that some folks might find that insensitive.
Retired union members will scream that the benefits they gained under negotiated contracts must be honored. Current union members will inform us that they no longer receive the kind of benefits that the old timers got when they retired. This is probably all true. I don’t care.
What I remember is when I transitioned from union staff into management. I anticipated no problems with the unions. After all, I had been a union member and helped organize an agency I worked for. Then, to my surprise, I was suddenly the enemy.
People I had worked with changed. I didn’t understand that this is a common occurence based on several realities, none of which I had been aware of, and that really didn’t have anything to do with me personally.
Then, when contract time rolled around, I saw what the union is really about. Shop stewarts began to manufacture lies about the terrible things that management was planning to do to the rank and file. When a strike was called management had tires slashed, glue put into the locks of their cars and in some cases their homes.
After the strike had been settled all was forgiven. Incompetent workers got raises like everyone else. Speaking of incompetent workers, the majority of those people I encountered, no matter how stupid, alcoholic or just plain lazy, were like Philadelphia lawyers when it came to the contract.
Consequently, I now, at this point in my life, couldn’t care less about what happens to rags like the N.Y. Times, or to the union members. Rewarded incompetence based on union extortion never increased productivity. I’m trying to think of a non-profane way to end these comments. I’m having trouble, so I’ll just steal a line. “The chickens are coming home to roost.”
13 unions?! Good luck on them agreeing to a cut. That’s why they are called unions. They were created to stick it to management.
There is only one reason for any union to exist these days. They are nothing more than job protection schemes for the least competent people. These people couldn’t get an honest job at a real company.
That was a great post, and I know it took some effort to tell, so many thanks.
To see the Globe, which I’m sure has championed every union initiative for the last 40 years or so, in danger of being brought low by its own unions, well, irony is seldom that rich.
Thank God they managed to publish that 14 part glory-filled bio of Ted Kennedy before the inevitable shutdown! What are that moonbats gonna read now, the Phoenix?
Let the unions eat cake - NY Times cake and hopefully they implode. If the NY TImes/Boston Globe unions were picketing close to where I lived - I would join the picket line in “solidarity.” LOL!
“What do we want!” “More money!’
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.