NYT threatens to shut down Boston Globe
The troubled New York Times Co. threatened to shut down the Boston Globe yesterday:
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.
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.
The concessions will be negotiated individually with each of the unions, said Totten and Ralph Giallanella, secretary-treasurer of the Teamsters Local 259, which represents about 200 drivers who deliver the newspaper.
“We all know the newspaper industry is going through great transition and loss,” said Giallanella. “The ad revenues have fallen off the cliff. Just based on everything that’s going on around the country, they’re serious.”
Catherine Mathis, a Times Co. spokeswoman, declined to comment. Globe publisher P. Steven Ainsley also declined to comment.
Newspapers have to adopt to changed circumstances. Many of them behave as if it was 2003. It’s not. It’s 2009. The news and opinion business has changed dramatically. All these businesses have to find ways to make money in this new news world.
Like every other business enterprise, NYT Co. has to reform itself, cut costs, make itself leaner and meaner if it wants to survive. And survive it undoubtedly will, for it’s big and very influential. Some newspapers will cease to exist, but many, and especially the bigger ones, will survive, albeit in a different form, and based on a different business model.
