UNIONIZED WORKERS VOTE ON CUTS.

Workers at the Boston Globe and the St. Louis Post-Dispatch have voted or soon will vote on a variety of cutbacks, including reductions in wages and hours.

Mailers and pressmen in Boston last week voted to approve cuts, with the mailers passing the motion closely at 107-95. The mailers are taking $5 million in annual cuts. The pressmen's union agreed to $2.2 million in concessions but didn't release their vote totals.

Both are units of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters; the paper's drivers, also Teamsters, will vote later this month, as will the Newspaper Guild/CWA. The Globe's owner, The New York Times Co., said in February the paper was on track to lose $85 million this year and if it didn't get at least $20 million in concessions, it would shutter the paper.

In St. Louis, the Business Journal reported today that Lee Enterprises Inc., which owns the Post-Dispatch, has opened its contract negotiations with the Guild asking for a 23-percent wage cut. The company wants a 15-percent cut this year and five percent in the second and third years of the contract.

Other concessions the company is seeking in its Guild contract include layoffs without reason, three-day suspensions without "just cause," no paid maternity leave (which would be cut back to 12 weeks maximum), no PPO medical plan, eliminating commission sales reps' guaranteed base pay and a laundry list of other take-backs.

Guild members voted 100-27 last Thursday to approve a second week of unpaid leave annually, with the proviso that the company "agreed to no layoffs during contract negotiations."

After huge concessions at a variety of locations -- Seattle and San Francisco spring to mind -- I think union workers are getting surly. That mailers vote in Boston was awfully close and I bet the Guild vote will be even closer (if it even passes). The move by Lee in St. Louis is such a slap in the face I'm surprised the Guild is willing to come back to the table.

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