Globe, union OK tentative 5-year pact
Under deal, paper would raise health fund contribution
The Boston Globe and the newspaper's largest union said yesterday they have agreed to a tentative five-year contract. A ratification vote by the union's 1,150 members is scheduled for Aug. 5.
Under the pact, the company would increase its contributions to the employee health fund and provide a total wage increase of nearly 10 percent over the life of the contract, which covers the years 2001 through 2005. The pact, in return, provides the company with ''significant new operating flexibility," the paper said in a statement.
Members of the Globe's Boston Newspaper Guild, Local 31245, which includes reporters and editors and employees in the maintenance, advertising sales, security, and circulation departments, have been working without a contract for more than three years. Protracted labor negotiations have become more common in the newspaper industry in recent years, as competitive pressures have increased and advertising has softened during the recession and subsequent recovery. Reporters at The Wall Street Journal staged a byline strike against parent Dow Jones & Co. last month to underscore their discontent about the lack of a contract. In early July, Dow Jones and the reporters agreed to a tentative contract.
Steven P. Richards, president of the Boston Newspaper Guild, said yesterday the healthcare provision of the contract ''brings stability to our health fund, which was one of the primary goals in these negotiations, and will allow us to significantly decrease our members' contributions" to health insurance premiums. Currently, full-time union employees pay about $105 per week in premiums for the family plan, including dental, Richards said.
Gregory L. Thornton, senior vice president of employee relations for the Globe, a wholly owned subsidiary of The New York Times Co., said in a statement yesterday, ''The new agreement represents a fair balancing of the competitive needs of the Globe in a changing marketplace with the needs of our employees to have appropriate protections with such changes as well as addressing the rising healthcare costs impacting everyone."
Both sides declined to give more specifics on the agreement until after the ratification vote.
Over the five years covered by the contract, the yearly wage increases will be 2.14 percent, 1.76 percent, 1.78 percent, 1.86 percent, and 2.14 percent, the company said. The average wage of full-time Globe union employees on Jan. 1, 2001, was $1,075 per week, negotiators said.
The Globe last year implemented wage increases for 2001 and 2002, which guild employees currently receive in their paychecks but will be asked to formally ratify as part of the five-year wage package. The 2003 and 2004 wage increases will become effective upon ratification of the contract, the union said. The 2005 wage increase will be implemented in two steps, with about half granted on Jan. 1, 2005, and the rest on July 1, 2005.
Of the Globe's 12 unions, the Boston Mailers Union, Teamsters Local 1, is the last remaining unit without a tentative agreement, said Dan Caplette, its president.
Kimberly Blanton can be reached at blanton@globe.com.
