Deep six: Did a dozen members of Boston Newspaper Guild just decide the fate of the Globe?

Published Jun 08 2009, 09:44 PM by Carly Carioli

The Boston Newspaper Guild -- the union representing the newsroom of the Boston Globe -- narrowly rejected the final offer of the New York Times Company tonight, by a vote of 277 to 265, according to Boston.com in a report published a few minutes ago. That's an agonizingly close vote, in an election that produced high turnout (Globe says 80 percent of union membership voted). As everyone and their mother scrambles to get a bead on what the Times Co will do with that particular news -- the Times is expected to cut wages by 23 percent across the board, and has not ruled out the possibility that it will shutter the paper -- it's terrifying to think that a handful of holdouts could be responsible for the end of New England's largest daily-newspaper going down in flames.

While we're at it, let's start scoring the "who broke this news first" aspect of the story. In a highly-non-scientific survey of the Twitter record, we think this post by Dana Giuliana, identified on another site as a design director for Boston.com, may have been the first publication of the results. Feel free to correct us in the comments.

We'll be posting headlines here as they arrive:

BOSTON NEWSPAPER GUILD MEMBERS REJECT CUTS [Poynter]. Rick Edmunds scopes the way ahead.
GLOBE'S LARGEST UNION REJECTS WAGE, BENEFIT CUTS [Boston Globe]
BOSTON GLOBE UNION REJECTS WAGE AND BENEFIT CUTS [NY Times]

(Despite the headlines, these are not the same story; the Times version says opponents of the Times offer believe the company was "bluffing" in its threat to levelthe 23-percent cuts. See also: Dan Kennedy's post this morning reading the tea leaves on the pre-vote stories in the Times and the Globe.)

GLOBE'S FUTURE IN DOUBT AFTER CONTRACT DEFEATED [WCVB]

Filed Under: Media, Boston Globe union, New York Times Co, Boston Newspaper Guild

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2 Comments

adamg said:

Steve Silva might have been first:

twitter.com/.../2083904229

June 8, 2009 11:35 PM
phil elliott said:

Who were the 20 percent who didn't care if they got a 10 percent wage cut or a 23 percent wage cut, and didn't show up to vote? Can they just lay them off and start over from there?

June 9, 2009 12:13 AM

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Deep six: Did a dozen members of Boston Newspaper Guild just decide the fate of the Globe?

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adamg said:

phil elliott said:

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